Poor Wilhelmina never thought of disobeying her parents: only, which of them to obey? King looks towards the Prince of Baireuth again, agreed on before those hurly-burlies now past; Queen looks far otherwards. Queen Sophie still desperately believes in the English match for Wilhelmina; and has subterranean correspondences with that Court; refusing to see that the negotiation is extinct there. Grumkow himself, so over-victorious in his late task, is now heeling towards England; "sincere in his wish to be well with us," thinks Dickens: Grumkow solaces her Majesty with delusive hopes in the English quarter: "Be firm, child; trust in my management; only swear to me, on your eternal salvation, that never, on any compulsion, will you marry another than the Prince of Wales;--give me that oath!" [Wilhelmina, i. 314.] Such was Queen Sophie's last proposal to Wilhelmina,--night of the 27th of January, 1731, as is computable,--her Majesty to leave for Potsdam on the morrow. They wept much together that night, but Wilhelmina dexterously evaded the oath, on a religious ground. Prince of Baireuth, whom Papa may like or may not like, has never yet personally made appearance: who or what will make appearance, or how things can or will turn, except a bad road, is terribly a mystery to Wilhelmina. What with chagrin and confinement, what with bad diet (for the very diet is bad, quality and quantity alike unspeakable), Wilhelmina sees herself "reduced to a skeleton;" no company but her faithful Sonsfeld, no employment but her Books and Music;--struggles, however, still to keep heart. One day, it is in February, 1731, as I compute, they are sitting, her Sonsfeld and she, at their sad mess of so-called dinner, in their remote upper story of the Berlin Schloss, tramp of sentries the one thing audible; and were "looking mournfully at one another, with nothing to eat but a soup of salt and water, and a ragout of old bones full of hairs and slopperies [nothing else; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew away." [Ib. i. 316.]