That evening Wilhelmina was taken sick with burning fever and severe pain. Still she was compelled to rise from her bed and attend a court party. The next morning she was worse. The king, upon being told of it, exclaimed gruffly, “Ill? I will cure you!” and compelled her to swallow a large draught of wine. Soon her sickness showed itself to be small-pox. Great was the consternation of her mother, from the fear that, even should she survive, her beauty would be so marred that the English prince would no longer desire her as his bride. Fortunately she escaped without a scar. CHAPTER III. THE SUFFERINGS OF FRITZ AND WILHELMINA. The King an Artist.--Cruel Exactions of the King.--Conflicts of Etiquette.--Quarrel with George II.--Nuptial Intrigues.--Energetic Action of Frederick William.--Marriage of Frederica Louisa.--Fritz and his Flute.--Wrath of the King.--Beats Wilhelmina and Fritz.-- Attempts to strangle Fritz.--The Hunt at Wusterhausen.--Intrigues in reference to the Double Marriage.--Anguish of Wilhelmina.-- Cruelty of her Mother.--Resolve of Fritz to escape to England. While Frederick William was confined to his room, tormented by the gout, he endeavored to beguile the hours in painting in oil. Some of these paintings still exist, with the epigraph, “Painted by Frederick William in his torments.” Wilhelmina writes: “For the most part, one of his own grenadiers was the model from which he copied. And when the portrait had more color in it than the original, he was in the habit of coloring the cheeks of the soldier to correspond with the picture. Enchanted with the fruits of his genius, he showed them to his courtiers, and asked their opinion concerning them. As he would have been very angry with any one who had criticised them, he was quite sure of being gratified with admiration. “‘Well,’ said he one day to an attendant, who was extolling the beauties of one of his pictures, ‘how much do you think that picture would bring at a sale?’ “‘Sire, it would be cheap at a hundred ducats.’ “‘You shall have it for fifty,’ said the king, ‘because you are a good judge, and I am therefore anxious to do you a favor.’ “The poor courtier,” Wilhelmina adds, “obliged to become possessor of this miserable performance, and to pay so dear for it, determined for the future to be more circumspect in his admiration.”