expense.' 'You delight me,' I exclaimed; 'I am weaned from the world; the adversities which I have experienced have taught me the vanity of all terrestrial things; I shall receive death with joy and without fear, since it will conduct me to a happy tranquillity, of which I cannot be deprived.' 'But what would then become of the Prince Royal?' continued Eversmann. 'If I can save his life my felicity will be complete; and if I die, I shall not feel the misery of surviving him.'" The Princess was confined to her bedroom, where her only resource was reading. She was so deprived of necessary food that her health continued to suffer greatly, and she became almost as thin as a skeleton. She mentions a pathetic incident which occurred at this time. As she and her governess were one day seated at table contemplating ruefully their apology for a meal, consisting only of a kind of soup made of water and salt, and "a hash of stale bones, full of hair and filth," they heard a tapping at the window. Rising to ascertain the cause, they found it was a crow with a crust of bread in her bill, which she dropped on the window-ledge, and then flew away. "Our fate is lamentable indeed," said Wilhelmina to her companion, "since it moves even dumb creatures; they take more pity on us than human beings, who treat us with so much cruelty." The Princess refers to the 6th May, 1731, as the most eventful day of her life. On that day messengers from the King waited upon her to renew the subject of her marriage, giving her the further option of marrying the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth, showing her at the same time an order for her imprisonment in case of her refusal, and offering, as a further inducement to her acquiescence, the liberty of her brother. On Wilhelmina again urging that she desired her father and mother to be of one mind on the subject, it was represented to her that the Queen would approve. In this dilemma, she consented to sacrifice her own inclinations, in the hope of restoring peace and goodwill in the family and, above all, gaining the pardon of her brother. Wilhelmina informed her mother of her resolution in the following letter:--