"Dear, dear Henry! A thousand thanks, a thousand blessings on your head for saving me from distraction. I am better now--I am well now. They know your love for me, they now know mine for you; and they will find neither fail, I am sure. The worst is over. They cannot shake me. I am yours for ever! "LOUISE." The account given me by Martin Vern was even more cheering than the letter of Louise herself; he had seen her, he said, and spoken with her long in her chamber. During the whole of the preceding day she had been so ill that the baron had become alarmed and grieved, and, in order to make some atonement, had sent for jewels and rich clothes as gifts to his daughter. It showed how little he knew her nature; with Louise, one kind word would have been worth all the jewels upon earth. After speaking long of her, the good merchant turned to other matters; and not only gave me the long-delayed acknowledgment of the sums of mine he had in hand, but pointed out means by which I might be enabled to obtain money, should I need it, in any of the great towns which I was likely to visit. My equipage was now complete, and on the following morning at daybreak I began my journey, proposing in the first place to seek the Prince of Orange. The kindness of the prince dauphin showed itself to the last moment, and he was up and out to see me depart, embracing me ere I mounted my horse as if he had been my brother. I found the Prince of Orange labouring hard to gather a sufficient army on the German side of the Rhine to support the insurgent Protestants of the Low Countries; and as he himself, and his brother Count Ludovic, had been much with our troops in France, my name was not unknown to him. He received me kindly and gladly; but there was about him a sort of cold and suspicious reserve, which doubtless was very needful, but which had a tendency to check attachment in the outset; and, had it not been for his great wisdom, skill, courage, and determination, which were already well known, one would have been inclined to say that he was less calculated than almost any other man on earth to sustain the character of a popular leader. The great difference, however, which exists between the mere capricious outbreak of popular discontent and the determined resistance to insufferable oppression, is shown in nothing more strongly than in the choice of leaders. The fiery, impetuous, loud-tongued demagogue does well enough for the one, but the calm, cool, powerful-minded statesman must be sought for in the other. The Prince of Orange gave me authority and command, but it was long ere he trusted me; and I could often see that, in conversing with me upon any indifferent subject, he watched every word that fell from me, every look, every gesture; but it was the same with others; and, ere he was perfectly satisfied with his own knowledge of the man, he never trusted, nor, even then, trusted entirely.