It is said that a certain becomingness of compliment was paid to the bride in an order given to Katharine von Busche to absent herself from the palace when the bride was brought home. The mistress, it is alleged, deferred her departure till it was too late, and from a window of Madame von Platen’s bedchamber the sisters witnessed the sight of George Louis dismounting from his horse, and hastening to help his wife to descend from the carriage. Madame von Platen, as she gazed, may have thought that her sister’s influence was over. If she did, Madame von Busche felt convinced of the contrary. The latter took her departure, for a season. The other prepared herself to join in the splendid court festivities held in honour of the event by the command of Ernest Augustus. Sophia Dorothea, subdued by past suffering, was so gentle that even Madame von Platen would have found it difficult to have felt offended with her sister’s rival. For a few months after Sophia Dorothea’s husband had taken her to Hanover, she experienced, perhaps, a less degree of unhappiness than was ever her lot subsequently. Her open and gentle nature won the regard even of Ernest Augustus. That is, he paid her as much regard as a man so coarsely minded as he was _could_ feel for one of such true womanly dignity as his daughter-in-law. His respect for her, however, may be best appreciated by the companionship to which he sometimes subjected her. He more frequently saw her in society with the immoral Madame von Platen than in the society of his own wife. Ernest looked gratefully upon her as the pledge of the future union of the two duchies under one duke. On this account, even if she had possessed less attractive qualities, he would have held Sophia Dorothea in great esteem. A certain measure of esteem Ernest experienced for all who had in any way furthered his scheme. His mistress, Madame von Platen, had always pretended to think favourably of the scheme, and admiringly of the wisdom of the schemer; in return for which, Ernest made his mistress’s husband a baron, and afterwards a count. Let us employ the higher dignity. In the beginning, George Louis seemed fairly in love with his wife; there appeared a promise of increased felicity when the first child of this marriage was born at Hanover, on the 30th of October 1683; his father conferred on him the names of George Augustus, he expressed pleasure at having an heir, and he even added some words of regard for the mother. The second child of this marriage was a daughter, born in 1687. She was that Sophia Dorothea who subsequently married the King of Prussia. In tending these two children the mother found all the happiness she ever experienced during her married life. Soon after the birth of the daughter, George Louis openly neglected and openly exhibited his hatred of his wife. He lost no opportunity of irritating and outraging her, and she could not even walk through the rooms of the palace which she called her home