She was more shrewd than witty, this ‘tall mawkin,’ as the Electress Sophia once called the lofty Ermengarda; and, as George Louis was neither witty himself, nor much cared for wit in others, she was the better enabled to establish herself in the most worthless of hearts. This was the work of the countess, who saw in the tender blue eyes, the really fine features, the imposing figure, and the nineteen years of Ermengarda, means to an end. When the countess hinted at the distinction that was within reach of her, the tall beauty is said to have blushed and hesitated, and then to have yielded herself with alacrity to the glittering circumstance. She and the prince first met on his return from a campaign in Hungary. He was at once subjected to her magic influences. She was an inimitable flatterer, and in this way she fooled her victim to ‘the very top of his bent.’ She exquisitely cajoled him, and with exquisite carelessness did he surrender himself to be cajoled. Gradually, by watching his inclinations, anticipating his wishes, admiring even his coarseness, and lauding it as candour, she so won upon the lazily excited feelings of George Louis that he began to think her presence indispensable to his well-being. If he hunted, she was in the field, the nearest to his saddle-bow. If he went out to walk alone, he invariably fell in with Ermengarda. At the court theatre, when _he_ was present, the next conspicuous object was the towering von der Schulenburg, ‘in all her diamonds,’ beneath the glare of which, and the blazing impudence of their wearer, the modest Sophia Dorothea was almost extinguished. Ermengarda was speedily established at Hanover, as hof-dame, or lady-in-waiting. Madame von Platen had announced a festival, to be celebrated at her mansion, which was to surpass in splendour anything that had ever been witnessed by the existing generation. The occasion was the second marriage of her sister, Madame von Busche, who had worried the poor ex-tutor of George Louis into the grave, with General Weyhe, a gallant soldier, equal, it would seem, to any feat of daring. Whenever the Countess von Platen designed to appear with more than ordinary brilliancy in her own person, she was accustomed to indulge in the extravagant luxury of a milk bath; and it _was_ added by the satirical or the scandalous, that the milk which had just lent softness to her skin was charitably distributed among the poor of the district wherein she occasionally affected to play the character of Dorcas.