"Oh, not as that alone, your Highness! Deign to accept the childlike, humble reverence of a heart which has long looked up to you as the noblest of women. I know not whether I ought to express in words what has been hovering upon my lips ever since the first moment of our meeting. It might, perhaps, be a great offense against etiquette, but I hope your Highness will regard the essence rather than the form." "I hope you will do me the honor to be assured of it," interposed Ottilie, with a smile. "Well, then, permit me to tell your Highness that I have long loved you with my whole heart." "If that is true, my child, I rejoice to hear it. Love is a voluntary gift, which, whether deserved or not, we are always permitted to receive. I thank you for it; yes, I thank you from the inmost depths of a lonely heart." "Ah, if you were not a princess!" murmured Cornelia, involuntarily. "My dear child, how often I have said that myself! God has placed me in this position only to test my strength; for that which compensates others in a similar station for their secret lack of happiness--delight in splendor and grandeur, sovereignty and renown--is denied me. Nothing has any charm for me; my joys are rooted solely in the heart; and even these are sparingly meted out. The gulf which severs the princess from her subjects does not exist in my soul, and cannot separate my affection from them. I love men, respect their rights, admire their works, and thus stand ever alone upon my lofty height, consumed with vain longings, and stretching out my arms across the abyss which yawns between me and the warm hearts of humanity." "Poor princess!" said Cornelia, earnestly. "Yes, poor princess," replied Ottilie, her eyes resting dreamily upon Cornelia's beautiful features. "But your Highness can taste great joys, and satisfy your benevolence by your power of benefiting so many thousands." "Do you think so, my dear child?" asked Ottilie, with a sorrowful smile. "That was the one thing for which I always envied princes," continued Cornelia, "which always made sovereignty appear so beautiful, so alluring."