Still, most of the courtly carousers did not comprehend this. And when the toast to Wilhelmina as Princess of Wales was received with such acclaim, they supposed that all doubt was at an end. The news flew upon the wings of the wind to Berlin. It was late in the afternoon of Monday, April 30. Wilhelmina writes: “I was sitting quiet in my apartment, busy with work, and some one reading to me, when the queen’s ladies rushed in, with a torrent of domestics in their rear, who all bawled out, putting one knee to the ground, that they were come to salute the Princess of Wales. I fairly believed these poor people had lost their wits. They would not cease overwhelming me with noise and tumult; their joy was so great they knew not what they did. When the farce had lasted some time, they told me what had occurred at the dinner. “I was so little moved by it that I answered, going on with my work, ‘Is that all?’ which greatly surprised them. A while after, my sisters and several ladies came to congratulate me. I was much loved, and I felt more delighted at the proofs each gave me of that than at what had occasioned their congratulations. In the evening I went to the queen’s. You may readily conceive her joy. On my first entrance she called me her dear Princess of Wales, and addressed Madam De Sonsfeld as ‘Miladi.’ This latter took the liberty of hinting to her that it would be better to keep quiet; that the king, having yet given no notice of this business, might be provoked at such demonstration, and that the least trifle could still ruin all her hopes.” The king, upon his return from Charlottenburg to Berlin, made no allusion whatever in his family to the matter. In the court, however, it was generally considered that the question, so far as Wilhelmina was concerned, was settled. Hotham held daily interviews with the king, and received frequent communications from the Prince of Wales, who appears to have been very eager for the consummation of the marriage. Many of these letters were shown to Wilhelmina. She was much gratified with the fervor they manifested on the part of a lover who had never yet seen her. In one of these letters the prince says: “I conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these negotiations finished. I am madly in love (_amoureux comme un fou_), and my impatience is unequaled.” The question arises, Why was Frederick William so averse to the marriage of Fritz with the Princess Amelia? Probably the real reason was his rooted antipathy to his son, and his consequent unwillingness to do any thing which would promote his interests or increase his influence. His advisers strengthened him in this sentiment. The English were very unpopular at Berlin. Their assumption of superiority over all other peoples was a constant annoyance. The Prussian king said to his confidential friends,