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Italian, I dare say, and now not only did he hear all our foolish remarks about himself, but he must have heard you address me as "Highness" and our incognito is spoiled? Dear me, Henriette, you should be more careful!" Henriette did not seem greatly crushed by this reproof, which was manifestly unjust, but said, with a little shrug of her shoulders, "There is no harm done after all; we shall probably never see the man again. But he wasn't really so stolid, was he? Poor man, how we must have injured his German dignity!" and she went off into another little peal of laughter in which the Princess seemed about to join, but changed her mind, and said severely, "Henriette, there is a real ferryman, will you please call to him; I shall not go mountain-climbing today." "But, your Highness," cried Mlle. Henriette, glancing down at her own trim suit of brown, "isn't it rather too bad, when you think what a fine chance you have, with the Duenna sick today." "Please don't remonstrate," returned the Princess in her most dignified manner, "but summon the man at once, and kindly remember that as long as we are here, I do not wish you to address me as 'Your Highness' in any language." "Very well, Ma'amselle," replied Henriette, trying to be solemn, but with the corners of her mouth twitching. The little Princess's sense of humor now got the better of her anger and they both laughed spasmodically all the way across, much to the amazement of the new boatman.

Late that afternoon the Princess's maid was tying her lady's veil, preparatory to a walk, when her Highness's companion, who was standing at the long window, cried, "Oh, your H-I mean, Ma'amselle-there is our ferryman, turning up this very walk; it must be that he is staying here!" "Our ferryman," repeated the Princess, with imposing dignity, "whom do you mean, Henriette?" But nevertheless she sprang away from Hortense's hands, and ran, yes ran, to the window, where, looking over Henriette's shoulder, she beheld the villain of the morning striding up the walk, apparently not at all oppressed by a guilty

conscience. "Whoever he is, it is perfectly absurd of him to go about in that costume! Wants to make himself conspicuous, no doubt. He must have come last night, mustn't he, Henriette? He certainly wasn't here before. I wonder who-" "He is," supplied the companion promptly, as her mistress suddenly stopped. "No, no, of course not, Henriette; how silly of you! The insolent creature!" and she went back to Hortense, who still stood where she had left her, holding out the veil in both hands, leaving Henriette in delightful uncertainty as to whether she or the ferryman was the "insolent creature."

Perhaps the Princess felt a little sorry for the frequent fits of ill-temper which she had vented upon her companion that day, for presently she said, "It is a shame, Henriette, that you can't go out with me, but I suppose you must go and console our Duenna." "The Duenna," was her somewhat disrespectful name for the Contessa d'Aglione, who was chaperoning the royal picnic party. The Contessa highly disapproved of the whole proceeding as, to tell the truth, did his Majesty the King. But the Princess was an up-to-date little lady and knew how to take care of herself, and Ma'amselle Henriette was considered (so much. for demure ways and a look beyond one's years) a most discreet young woman, and the Contessa was a perfect dragon for watchfulness, and last and most important,-many of the greatest royal personages in history had travelled incognito. And so! for all these reasons, and because his Majesty shrewdly thought it might make his wilful Maria readier to enter upon a certain marriage-contract he had in mind, he permitted her to make a trip through southern Germany, the Contessa going as chaperone, and Henriette as a friend, all three apparently upon the same footing. To be sure, neither the Princess nor the Contessa could dispense with a maid, but then, as the Princess said, confidently, "They will take us for some of these wealthy bourgeois." Henriette had always had her doubts about that, and they were stronger now than ever, as she watched her lady leave

the hotel, with her head held proudly erect, and a natural haughtiness in the bearing of her whole diminutive figure.

Before going to see the Contessa, Henriette rang for the bellboy, and asked him to bring up the hotel-register, as she wished to see who had arrived the evening before. "Oh, Fräulein," said the boy, a round, apple-face youngster, who was never so happy as when he had a chance to talk, "there is no need to get the book, please, because only one person came last night, and I know his name very well; he was born here, although he is a professor in Berlin University (here Johann swelled his chest. with pride); he comes back here every summer. Yes, he is a fine professor, as his father and grandfather were before him, the good Herr Bremistein. He is that kind,-"There, there, that will do," cried Henriette, inwardly delighted with this unexpectedly full information, the most of which she had understood, in spite of its being in that wretched German. "So that is how he knows French so well," she thought, as she absent-mindedly mounted the stairs; "how stupid of me not to understand his German, when I can tell so readily what Johann says!"

It was a very sallow countenance which the poor Contessa turned towards Henriette, as she entered, and a very anxious one. "O Ma'amselle," she gasped, "what will his Majesty say to me!" Here has that poor lamb been alone all day in this barbarous Germany. All sorts of things might have happened, and she is so unmindful of the proprieties sometimes, dear child!" "I assure you, she has been most dignified, Contessa, and besides she wasn't exactly alone; you forget that I was with her!" "You! H'm!" retorted the Contessa, "you're nothing but a child yourself. And to think it's all because of the outlandish German messes that they call food! Who wouldn't have indigestion!"

Henriette set the maid to fanning the wrathful old lady, and handed her a glass of cold water, hoping to cool her temper, as well as her head. "You'll have to do without me for one more meal," continued the Contessa, fretfully, "my head is so dizzy

that I can't step! Do you suppose that you can get along?" Henriette thought that they might try, and ran joyfully downstairs to meet the Princess, whom she saw coming in. "Oh, Ma'amselle, what do you think!" she cried, "I've found out all about him!" "About whom, pray?" asked the Princess icily. "Why, about the ferryman!" "Indeed! I can't understand what interest he can possibly have for you." "Oh, very well, Ma'amselle!" and Henriette retired to her room in high dudgeon. But as she was putting up her hair for dinner, a little figure stole up behind, a figure with laughingly beseeching brown eyes and a thoroughly bewitching smile. "Henri'," whispered her Highness, "tell me all about him, there's a good girl." Henriette was so overjoyed to see her mistress's own merry self once more that she let her hair fall unheeded over her shoulders and, sitting down, repeated the bell-boy's speech in translation. "So he is of the upper bourgeois, I suppose," said the Princess musingly; "well, that isn't much better than a peasant, after all." "Indeed, your Highness, I think there is a great difference," said Henriette, rising indignantly as she spoke. "There, stand just like that, Henri," said the Princess, with a provoking smile; "you are really very pretty, do you know, when you are angry." And then, as Henriette turned to verify this statement in the glass, she went on composedly, "I meant nothing at all against your class, you understand, except that it is all the same to me. How exceedingly rude he was! He ought to have let us known; ought to have interrupted our conversation. What right has a German to know French anyway? Now there's Prince Alberto! He may be little and brown and monkeyish, and disgusting (this last under her breath), but at all events he isn't learned!" and she spitefully plunged a pin into the arm of the chair.

As they sat down to dinner, rejoiced to have the small table for the second time to themselves, the landlord crossed over to them, and said, rubbing his fat hands, and with a glowing smile, "I shall hope not to disturb you, Fräulein, but as the empty-place

at your table is all I got left, I must make bold to give it to my latest comer. Will it too much incommode you?" The Princess frowned, but remembering her incognito, said in time, but rather ungraciously, "Very well; it can't be helped, I suppose." The landlord departed, and in a moment returned with the "ferryman." The Princess caught her breath, and Ma'amselle had scarcely presence of mind enough to bow, as the host pompously presented the "Herr Professor Brennstein, of Berlin University." The new-comer bowed courteously, but with a surprised expression which made Henriette forgive him for his unwitting intrusion. The meal passed in frozen silence, the Princess not even daring to speak a word in her native Italian, for fear the wizard might understand that also.

"Did you ever see such insolence, Henriette?" she cried, when they were once more in their own apartments; "I'm sure, Prince Alberto would have avoided that encounter somehow." "You are hard upon the poor young man, Ma'amselle," said Henriette; "I feel very sorry for him." "He has a fine, manly bearing, 'tis true," replied her Highness, and then in her thoughts, "not a bit like Prince Alberto."

The Contessa was horrified when she first heard of the fourth member at their table, but after a few meals, became quite reconciled. The young ladies, and especially the Princess, treated him with such cool propriety. To be sure, it was not possible to stay for ever beyond the limits of speech. Such little occasions as passing the salt or the vinegar, and expressing thanks for the same, gradually broke the bonds of rigid formality, and when the youthful professor saved the Contessa's pet lap-dog from rushing into the lake in one of his fits, she decided that the young man was very exemplary, and even urged the Princess to be more civil to him. "Very well, if you wish it," said the Princess, at last, with a dangerous little smile, and after that was so gracious and witty and charming as to bring the poor "Duenna" to the verge of distraction, over the precipice of which she would cer

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