minor facts, had read the story of their misdeeds in a minute. She sent
them down to the carriage, suffering her culprits to kiss her fingers;
while she said to one: 'This might be a fable of a pair of mice.'

When she was gone, after many fits of musing, the signification of it was
revealed to my slower brain. I felt that it could not but be an
additional shock to the regal pride of such a woman that these little
maidens should have been permitted to act forcibly on her destiny. The
mystery of the letters was easily explained as soon as a direct suspicion
fell on one of the girls who lived in my neighbourhood and the other who
was near the princess's person. Doubtless the revelation of their
effective mouse plot had its humiliating bitterness for her on a day of
heavy oppression, smile at it as she subsequently might. The torture of
heart with which I twisted the meaning of her words about the pair of
mice to imply that the pair had conspired to make a net for an eagle and
had enmeshed her, may have struck a vein of the truth. I could see no
other antithesis to the laudable performance of the single mouse of
fable. Lieschen, when she next appeared in the character of nurse, met
my inquiries by supplicating me to imitate her sister's generous
mistress, and be merciful.

She remarked by-and-by, of her own accord: 'Princess Ottilia does not
regret that she had us educated.'

A tender warmth crept round me in thinking that a mind thus lofty would
surely be, however severe in its insight, above regrets and recantations.