The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Princess Elopes, by Harold MacGrath

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Title: The Princess Elopes

Author: Harold MacGrath

Release Date: December 25, 2005 [eBook #17391]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE PRINCESS ELOPES

by

HAROLD MACGRATH

Author of The Puppet Crown, The Grey Cloak, The Man on the Box

With Illustration by Harrison Fisher

[Frontispiece: Princess Hildegarde (Gretchen) playing the piano.]

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright 1905
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

TO MY WIFE

THE PRINCESS ELOPES

I

It is rather difficult in these days for a man who takes such scant
interest in foreign affairs--trust a whilom diplomat for that!--to
follow the continual geographical disturbances of European surfaces.
Thus, I can not distinctly recall the exact location of the Grand Duchy
of Barscheit or of the neighboring principality of Doppelkinn. It
meets my needs and purposes, however, to say that Berlin and Vienna
were easily accessible, and that a three hours' journey would bring you
under the shadow of the Carpathian Range, where, in my diplomatic days,
I used often to hunt the "bear that walks like a man."

Barscheit was known among her sister states as "the meddler," the
"maker of trouble," and the duke as "Old Grumpy"--_Brummbaer_. To use a
familiar Yankee expression, Barscheit had a finger in every pie.
Whenever there was a political broth making, whether in Italy, Germany
or Austria, Barscheit would snatch up a ladle and start in. She took
care of her own affairs so easily that she had plenty of time to
concern herself with the affairs of her neighbors. This is not to
advance the opinion that Barscheit was wholly modern; far from it. The
f