Her father began to threaten and storm and reproach her mother for encouraging their daughter in this insubordination. Parental authority had its weight with even the most self-willed young Princess in those days, and the result of the combination of her father’s threats and her mother’s entreaties was that Sophie Dorothea gradually became calmer, and was coaxed, or forced, into getting up and dressing herself, and consented to be presented to her aunt Sophia in a proper manner. She had also to go through the ordeal of receiving the birthday congratulations of the court and of appearing at the banquet, when her betrothal was announced; but her tear-stained eyes and downcast looks, no less than her mother’s pallor and dejection, made it evident that she was acting under compulsion, and evoked the pity rather than the congratulations of the court of Celle. Perhaps the Duchess Sophia found in the tears of Eléonore and her daughter some consolation for the humiliation she underwent in thus recognising and meeting them for the first time as equals. The next day Ernest Augustus and George Louis arrived from Hanover. Ernest Augustus was radiant, but George Louis was even more sullen than his wont. The beginning of the wooing was not promising. The young Princess fainted in her mother’s arms when she was presented to her future husband. Her dislike was quite reciprocated by George Louis, who, though willing to go through the affair for the sake of the money, had been trained to have nothing but contempt for “Madame” of Celle and her daughter. His manners at the best were not prepossessing, and in this case he did not even take the trouble to make himself agreeable to his future bride. The elders did all the smiles and congratulations; the principals in the contract rendered nothing but an outward acquiescence, sulky on his side, and rebellious on hers.