WEDGEWOOD (looking around, and speaking enthusiastically as he enters.) Admirable, upon my word! Every department better than the last, and this the best of all! Never saw anything like it. The colors brilliant--the designs exquisitely classical--"a place for everything, and everything in its place!" COUNT. Whatever His Majesty constructs, whether a fortress or a factory, is perfect in all its details. WEDGEWOOD. Yet look around, and read your monarch's history in the eyes of these prisoners of war. Observe that picture of melancholy (pointing to SOPHIA, who, during the scene, has been leaning dejectedly on her hand.--KARL standing by her side.) How reluctantly she pursues her task! Our English manufacturers work in quite another manner, for they are free! KARL. And are free men or free women never indisposed?--or do you Englishmen blame your king whenever any of his subjects turn pale? The woman at whom you are looking is evidently ill. WEDGEWODD. The fie upon your inhumanity for making a poor, sick girl work when she seems scarcely able to hold up her head! (Aside.) I don't half like that fellow. Villainously odd. ALBERT (to SOPHIA.) My poor girl, what is the matter with you. The overseer says that, since you came here, you have done nothing worthy of your pencil. Yet this charming piece (pointing to an ornament on her painting)--which was brought from Saxony is of your design--is it not? SOPHIA. Yes, sir, it was my misfortune to paint it. If the king had never seen or liked it, I should now be-- ALBERT. In Saxony; but forget that country, and you may be happy in this. SOPHIA. I can not forget it!--I can not forget everybody that I ever loved. Ask not a Saxon woman to forget her country! ALBERT. Whom do you love in Saxony now? SOPHIA. Whom do I NOT love in Saxony? I have a brother there, whom I have not seen since childhood. He was at college when I was carried off from the cottage in which we both were born. He is ignorant of my fate. (She regards ALBERT with great attention, and examines his features minutely.) ALBERT. Why do you gaze upon me so intently? SOPHIA. I know not why, sir; but you seemed even now a dear heart-cherished one, whom I have wished for long and anxiously. ALBERT. Think me that one, and trust me. SOPHIA. I will--for there's a cherub nestling in my heart which whispers, "You are here to save me!" (ALBERT leads her to her task, which she resumes in great dejection of spirits.) WEDGEWOOD (to KARL.) Is that poor girl often thus? KARL. She sits as you see her, like one stupefied, half the day. WEDGEWOOD. The cause of this--if it is convenient? KARL. She has fallen to the lot of a soldier (glancing at SOPHIA)--who swears, if she delays another day to MARRY HIM, that he will complain to the king. COUNT (turning furiously upon KARL.) Wretch! (seizes him.) KARL (throwing him off.) This insult will cost you dear! Your scorn for the king's commands--