face. I knew her without need of pause or retrospect. The
crocus raising its cup pointed as when it pierced the earth, and the
crocus stretched out on earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower.
The face was the same, though the features were changed. Unaltered in
expression, but wan, and the kind blue eyes large upon lean brows, her
aspect was that of one who had been half caught away and still shook
faintly in the relaxing invisible grasp.

We stopped at a distance of half-a-dozen paces to allow her time for
recollection. She eyed us softly in a fixed manner, while the sea-wind
blew her thick redbrown hair to threads on her cheek. Colour on the fair
skin told us we were recognized.

'Princess Ottilia!' said my father.

'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?'

'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.'

'And he?'

'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not
forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.'

Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me.

'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little
Hungarian,' said I.

'How nice this sea-air is!' she spoke in English. 'England and sea go
together in my thoughts. And you are here! I have been down very low,
near the lowest. But your good old sea makes me breathe again. I want to
toss on it. Have you yet seen the Markgrafin?'

My father explained that we had just landed from the boat.

'Is our meeting, then, an accident?'

'Dear princess, I heard of your being out by the shore.'

'Ah! kind: and you walked to meet me? I love that as well, though I love
chance. And it is chance that brings you here! I looked out on the boat
from England while they were dressing me: I cannot have too much of the
morning, for then I have all to myself: sea and sky and I. The night
people are all asleep, and you come like an old Marchen.'

Her eyelids dropped without closing.

'Speak no more to her just at present,' said an English voice, Miss
Silbey's. Schwartz, the huge dragoon, whose big black horse hung near
him in my memory like a phantom, pulled the chair at a quiet pace, head
downward. A young girl clad in plain black walked beside Miss Sibley,
following the wheels.

'Danger is over,' Miss Sibley answered my gaze. 'She is convalescent.
You see how weak she is.'

I praised the lady for what I deemed her great merit in not having
quitted the service of the princess.

'Oh!' said she, 'my adieux to Sarkeld were utt