Clementina was softened on the instant. She ran across to her mother's chair, and kneeling by it said with a laugh, "So you shall. I would not barter mothers with any girl in Christendom. But you understand. I am pledged in honour to my King. I will receive the Prince, but indeed I would he had not come," and rising again she kissed her mother on the forehead. She received the Prince of Baden alone. He was a stout man of much ceremony and took some while to elaborate a compliment upon Clementina's altered looks. Before, he had always seen her armed and helmeted with dignity; now she had much ado to keep her lips from twitching into a smile, and the smile in her eyes she could not hide at all. The Prince took the change to himself. His persistent wooing had not been after all in vain. He was not, however, the man to make the least of his sufferings in the pursuit which seemed to end so suitably to-day. "Madam," he said with his grandest air, "I think to have given you some proof of my devotion. Even on this inclement day I come to pay my duty though the streets are deep in snow." "Oh, sir," exclaimed Clementina, "then your feet are wet. Never run such risks for me. I would have no man weep on my account though it were only from a cold in the head." The Prince glanced at Clementina suspiciously. Was this devotion? He preferred to think so. "Madam, have no fears," said he, tenderly, wishing to set the anxious creature at her ease. "I drove here in my carriage." "But from the carriage to the door you walked?" "No, madam, I was carried." Clementina's lips twitched again. "I would have given much to have seen you carried," she said demurely. "I suppose you would not repeat the--No, it would be to ask too much. Besides, from my windows here in the side of the house I could not see." And she sighed deeply. The fatuous gentleman took comfort from the sigh. "Madam, you have but to say the word and your windows shall look whichever way you will." Clementina, however, did not say the word. She merely sighed again. The Prince thought it a convenient moment to assert his position. "I have stayed a long while in Innspruck, setting my constancy, which bade me stay, above my dignity, which bade me go. For three months I have stayed,--a long while, madam." "I do not think three years could have been longer," said Clementina, with the utmost sympathy. "So now in the end I have called my pride to help me." "The noblest gift that heaven has given a man," said Clementina, fervently. The Prince bowed low; Clementina curtsied majestically. [Illustration: THE PRINCE STRUTTED TO THE WINDOW; CLEMENTINA SOLEMNLY KEPT PACE WITH HIM."--_Page 161._] "Will you give me your hand," said he, "as far as your window?" "Certainly, sir, and out of it." Clementina laid her hand in his. The Prince strutted to the window; Clementina solemnly kept pace with him.