its rays upon it, was a tower of porcelain, burnished with all the
hues of a king's peacock and a queen's jewels, and surmounted with
armed figures, and shields, and flowers of heraldry, and a great
golden crown upon the highest summit of all.

It was a stove of 1532, and on it were the letters H. R. H., for
it was in every portion the handwork of the great potter of
Nurnberg, Augustin Hirschvogel, who put his mark thus, as all the
world knows.

The stove, no doubt, had stood in palaces and been made for
princes, had warmed the crimson stockings of cardinals and the
gold-broidered shoes of archduchesses, had glowed in presence-
chambers and lent its carbon to help kindle sharp brains in
anxious councils of state; no one knew what it had seen or done or
been fashioned for; but it was a right royal thing. Yet perhaps it
had never been more useful than it was now in this poor, desolate
room, sending down heat and comfort into the troop of children
tumbled together on a wolfskin at its feet, who received frozen
August among them with loud shouts of joy.

"Oh, dear Hirschvogel, I am so cold, so cold!" said August,
kissing its gilded lion's claws. "Is father not in, Dorothea?"

"No, dear. He is late."

Dorothea was a girl of seventeen, dark-haired and serious, and
with a sweet sad face, for she had had many cares laid on her
shoulders, even whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest of
the Strehla family; and there were ten of them in all. Next to her