Mitri, her own beloved Mitri--dear and good, it is true, but somewhat of a "softy," a purposeless dreamer,--now a priest, and above all a missionary! His mother could hardly believe her senses. This was the son to whom but a few years before she had written: "It is a wretched thing that a youth of eighteen should be a child. He can not, of course, as yet be a _man_; but he must be a _youth_ and no longer a _child_, if he ever means to be a man." And now Princess Amalie had a hard time of it. She was a chronic invalid, a great sufferer. With all her seeming harshness toward Mitri, she loved him dearly and well. Yet she had to bear not only his loss, but to be blamed by her husband and all her relatives for being in the secret,--for having known "all about it" throughout. And when able to disprove this assertion, she was still accused of having, through her exaggerated piety, been the means of putting such high-flown ideas into the young man's head. The Prince was the first to recognize his mistake and to write a generous letter to his wife, freeing her from all blame; which, considering his grievous disappointment, was most creditable to him. The Gallitzins were indeed in a very awkward position. As Demetrius held an ensign's commission in the Russian army, and was due in St. Petersburg at the end of two years at the latest, his father now wrote to him entreating him, almost commanding him, to return; for he foresaw clearly enough what a refusal would entail. According to Russian law, he would be disinherited for becoming a Catholic priest; but besides this he would, because of his neglect to take up his commission, be looked upon as a quasi-deserter, and be banished from the empire as a rebel. It was now that the full beauty and magnanimity of Amalie Gallitzin were seen in their true light. Her absolute unworldliness, her reverence for the slightest whisper of the Divine Voice were so great that never once did she seek to turn Mitri from his purpose, beyond quietly laying the state of the case before him for his own judgment. In spite of worry and opposition and a good deal of secret heartache, in the depths of her great soul she rejoiced and gloried in the vocation of her son. When the Princess had given Mitri the Bishop of Hildesheim's introduction to the Bishop of Baltimore, she no doubt imagined him one of those dignitaries of the Church, such as they were in Germany--a temporal lord, a man of vast influence, who lived in a palace and had a large seminary and other ecclesiastical establishments under his control. How different was the reality!