going to compare your own silly
traditions with works of genius, I give you up as hopeless!"

And this was the beginning and the end of the Princess Royal's attempt
to infuse Culture into Court Circles.

She had certainly failed signally to inspire her ladies with any
enthusiasm for English Literature, though, strangely enough, Daphne
succeeded later in giving them a more favourable impression of its
quality.

Edna was, of course, incomparably more widely read, but then Daphne
knew such authors as she had read well enough to be able to give a very
full and clear account of her favourite books, and to repeat many of her
best loved poems from memory.

It is quite possible that much of the pleasure her companions took in
hearing her do so was due to her own personality. They were not, it must
be confessed, a highly intellectual or cultivated set of young women,
but one and all regarded Daphne with a whole-hearted adoration which
would have given Princess Edna, had she condescended to notice it, a
lower opinion than ever of their intelligence.

The links were at last in a sufficiently advanced stage for practice at
the first nine of the eighteen holes, and Clarence undertook to instruct
the Marshal in the mysteries of the game. The Marshal, though slightly
handicapped by insisting on playing in a breastplate and high boots, was
so much encouraged by the success which most beginners at golf
experience that he at once became an ardent votary. He tried to make
converts of the Courtiers, but they preferred to keep an open mind and
remain spectators for the present.

Prince Tapfer von Schneiderleinberg indeed went so far as to say that
golf seemed to him to be without the element of danger which all genuine
sport should possess. He modified that opinion, it is true, after
incautiously standing close behind the Marshal when he was driving off
from the tee, but it did not alter his prejudices against the game.

King Sidney practised most assiduously in private, and found he improved
in his driving under Clarence's tuition. The Gnomes had been established
in a kind of compound near the links, but their unfortunate tendency to
bolt with the club-bags and purloin every ball they found rather
impaired their usefulness as caddies. Marshal Federhelm treated his with
regrettable inhumanity.

There was still a good deal of "ground under repair" on the course, but
the day was drawing near when the links could be formally opened. T