The remaining months of the year 1731 brought Frederick great pleasure and a heavy blow. He grew in favour with his father, who in November summoned him to appear for a short time at Berlin and at last promised to restore to him his rank in the army. But at the same time he lost his sister. Wilhelmina was forced by her father into an unhappy marriage with the Margrave of Baireuth, a humble cousin whose title to the favour of his bride was that by accepting him she propitiated her father and freed herself from a still less bearable suitor. Elated by the progress of his own fortunes, Frederick seems for the moment to have been insensible to her trouble and to his own loss. By the King’s order he paid his sister a visit. But he treated her coldly when they met, broke off the conversation abruptly, and walked into the room to which her husband had courteously withdrawn. “He scanned him for some time from head to foot,” writes Wilhelmina, “and after addressing to him a few words of cold politeness he withdrew.... I could not recognise that dear brother who had cost me so many tears and for whom I had sacrificed myself.” Frederick’s standard of behaviour towards his social inferiors was however revealed by other incidents at this time. His tutor, Hille, was a man of the middle classes. In his official position he received reports from a Landrat, or Sheriff, who was of noble birth. A reference by Hille to these reports drew from the Crown Prince the remark that it was singular that a nobleman should render account to a man of the middle class. Next year he wrote to Grumbkow that his daughter was “without charms and without ancestors.” [Illustration: ELIZABETH CHRISTINA OF BRUNSWICK. FROM AN OLD PRINT.] In 1732 Frederick experienced another pleasure and a far severer blow. He was allowed to leave Cüstrin, but he left it under sentence of marriage. This had been decreed in consequence of a curious chain of events. Frederick’s preceptors had remarked that he scorned administrative detail but displayed a taste for high politics. This was evident in his suggestions for the disposal of his hand. Now he would marry, if he must marry at all, Anne of Russia; now the Archduchess Maria Theresa, renouncing his succession in Prussia. This suggestion was reported by Grumbkow to the Emperor’s great minister, Eugene. The old diplomat scented danger in such large ideas and urged that the Crown Prince of Prussia should be bound to the car of Austria. He might be encouraged to borrow money from the Emperor, and married to Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, a niece of the Empress. Frederick William, still hot against England, with whose Court his queen continued to intrigue, cheerfully assented to the match.