Meanwhile, great changes had taken place at Ebesfalva. The dwelling of the Prince no longer consisted of a simple manor-house. On a neighbouring hill he had had a castle built with lofty, square towers, from the corners of which rose still loftier turrets. The entrance was guarded by two proudly rampant stone lions. On the façade, in bold relief, was carved the inscription: _Fata viam inveniunt_. A vestibule, connecting one wing of the castle with the other, and surrounded by a richly-gilded and ornamented trellis-work, runs along the front of the castle on huge, classically-carved stone pillars. The windows are all in the Perpendicular style, with old-fashioned ornaments, and you reach the inner courtyard by a subterranean corridor. In this courtyard, instead of ploughs and wagons, our eye falls upon arquebusses and culverins. Instead of peasants, we see body-guards, in yellow dolmans and scarlet hose, swaggering before the doors. To reach the Prince's cabinet, one must traverse long corridors and re-echoing saloons, in which pages, footmen, and gentlemen of the bedchamber announce the newcomer from door to door, and when one has finally reached the reception-chamber, it is only to see, after all, not the Prince, but the Prince's chief councillor, Master Michael Teleki, the same bald-headed man whom we first met at Csakatorny, at that memorable hunt where Nicolas Zrinyi met his death. At that time the worthy gentleman was only one of Prince George Rakoczy's disgraced ex-captains; but since then a kind Providence has taken him by the hand, and he is now Captain-General of Kövar, and the Prince's omnipotent prime minister. His mother was the Princess's sister, and his aunt, whom he always calls sister (women seldom take offence at such mistakes), introduced him to her consort. Once near the Prince, Teleki needed no one's good word. His comprehensive intellect, vast knowledge, and statesmanlike dexterity made him indispensable to the Prince, who loved to bury himself among his books and his antiquities, and felt aggrieved when anything tore him away from his family circle or his favourite studies. To-day, too, his reception-room is crammed to suffocation by gentlemen who seek an audience of his Highness. They are the fugitive Hungarians, of whom the Prince seems to stand in peculiar horror. These restless, bellicose, dark-browed people are an abomination to the easy-going, contemplative Prince. So he shuts himself up in his study, and the only person admitted to his presence is the learned and reverend John Passai, Professor at Nagy-Enyed, beloved by the Prince on account of his profound scholarship.