“What does the fellow mean by talking about _his_ king?” muttered the old baron. “Our gracious sovereign is the elector of Saxony.” “But not mine,” was Axel’s proud reply. “I have the honour to be a Swede.” “For heaven’s sake, Magister, tell me whence this fellow gets his pride, and bold words?” asked the baron softly. “Why, I have already had my meditations on that subject,” replied he, with a shake of the head; and the old baron said, in a commanding tone to Axel: “There’s your wine, but you shall drink to the health of our lord elector.” “Most joyfully,” replied Axel, filling a bumper, and raising it in the air; “here’s to the health of your noble elector, and my heroic king, and may the concluded alliance prove a blessing to Saxony and to Sweden for many generations to come.” “Well, that is something new again,” replied the baron, sarcastically; “I suppose you were in the cabinet when the alliance was concluded. Unfortunately we have not come to that yet.” “We have come to it, my lord,” replied Axel, familiarly tapping the baron on the shoulder; “your elector is no chess king, who is afraid to take a quick and decisive step that shall decide the welfare of his land.” He went away, and the two old gentlemen sat, struck with astonishment, staring at each other, like the pair of lions at Dresden. In melancholy mood, Tugendreich was standing before an old decayed shaft, to which her walk had brought her, and her maid, like Fräulein’s little spaniel, was crawling about among the bushes in search of something. At this moment Talander came up to them, laden with a large bundle of plants on his return from botanising. To his inquiries, as to what they were in search of, Tugendreich informed him, that, in running down a hill, she had laid hold of a branch, and twisted from her finger a beautiful sapphire ring, a beloved legacy of her late mother, which had probably rolled into the shaft, as they had at present searched for it in vain. “Oh, what youthful levity!” replied the magister, in a grumbling voice. “This precious stone ought not to have been merely valuable to you as a remembrance of your revered mother, but, having been dug and cut out under particular constellations, it was the talisman of your life. Have you been forgetful enough not to remember that the greatest secrets of nature lie in _verbis, herbis et lapidibus_? A foreboding which rarely deceives me, tells me that this loss will have a decisive influence on your fate.” Tugendreich listened anxiously to the words of the old tutor, which she was wont to consider as oracles.