forced back her husband, who in his excitement and impatience had made an
effort to rise. "Yes, I have letters from The Hague, my dear husband,
letters from both our uncle, the Prince of Orange, and my mother, and I
dare affirm that these letters have given me heartfelt joy, inasmuch as my
uncle the Stadtholder, as well as my mother, write of our dear son that he
is an accomplished Prince, in whom one may reasonably rejoice, and whom we
may be proud to call our son. You know, George, that during these three
years of his sojourn in Holland, we have ever had good and complimentary
accounts of him. His tutor, von Kalkhun, has often reported to us with
what diligence our son applied himself to his studies at Leyden, and that
he had become quite a learned Prince, in whom even the professors
themselves took peculiar delight. Then when he had finished his course of
studies at Leyden and went to Arnheim, where he met with the Princes
William of Orange and Maurice of Nassau, they could not sufficiently laud
the handsome appearance, lofty spirit, and noble heart of our young
Electoral Prince."

"Truly," muttered the Elector, "one could infer from your discourse that
you are the mother of this highly praised lad. It is an old experience
that mothers always find something remarkable in their sons, and if they
were to be believed, then would the son of every mother be no ordinary
specimen of mankind, but a phoenix among all other men."

"But, my well-beloved Elector, I have nevertheless told nothing but the
truth. Our son has been very successful in his studies these last three
years in Holland, and has become a very learned and accomplished young
man, who is well skilled in Latin and Greek, besides speaking German,
French, and Italian in a masterly way. But most especially has he
cultivated himself in a knowledge of the science of war, and the Princes
of Orange and Nassau certify that he will assuredly become hereafter a