"Words, words! base, hypocritical words!" cried Amelia. "You first inspired me with the thought which led to my childish and contradictory behavior, and which for some days made me the jest of the court. You are a false friend, a faithless sister! I stood in your path, and you put me aside. I understand now your perfidious counsels, your smooth, deceitful encouragement to my opposition against the proposition of the Swedish ambassador. I, forsooth, must be childish, coarse, and rude, in order that your gentle and girlish grace, your amiable courtesy, might shine with added lustre. I was your foil, which made the jewel of your beauty resplendent. Oh! it is shameful to be so misused, so outwitted by my sister!" With streaming eyes, Amelia sank upon a chair, and hid her face with her trembling little hands. "Foolish child!" said Ulrica, "you accuse me fiercely, but you know that you came to me and implored me to find a means whereby you would be relieved from this hateful marriage with the Prince Royal of Sweden." "You should have reasoned with me, you should have encouraged me to give up my foolish opposition. You should have reminded me that I was a princess, and therefore condemned to have no heart." "You said nothing to me of your heart; you spoke only of your religion. Had you told me that your heart rebelled against this marriage with the Crown Prince of Sweden, then, upon my knees, with all the strength of a sister's love, I would have implored you to accept his hand, to shroud your heart in your robe of purple, and take refuge on your throne from the danger which threatens a young princess if she allows her heart to speak." Amelia let her hands fall from her face, and looked up at her sister, whose great earnest eyes were fixed upon her with an expression of triumph and derision. "I did not say that my heart had spoken," she cried, sobbing and trembling; "I only said that we poor princesses were not allowed to have hearts." "No heart for one; but a great large heart, great enough for all!" cried Ulrica. "You accuse me, Amelia, but you forget that I did not intrude upon your confidence. You came to me voluntarily, and disclosed your abhorrence of this marriage; then only did I counsel you, as I would wish to be advised under the same circumstances. In a word, I counselled you to obey your conscience, your own convictions of duty." "Your advice was wonderfully in unison with your own plans; your deceitful words were dictated by selfishness," cried Amelia, bitterly. "I would not have adopted the course which I advised you to pursue, because my character and my feeling are wholly different from yours. My conscience is less tender, less trembling than yours. To become a Lutheran does not appear to me a crime, not even a fault, more particularly as this change is not the result of fickleness or inconstancy, but for an important political object." "And your object was to become Queen of Sweden?"