ittle company departed, leaving the
princess and Max alone.

Ah, how everything was changed! thought Max, as he let down his sleeve
and buttoned his cuff. A prince! He was a prince; he, Max
Scharfenstein, cow-boy, quarter-back, trooper, doctor, was a prince!
If it was a dream, he was going to box the ears of the bell-boy who
woke him up. But it wasn't a dream; he knew it wasn't. The girl
yonder didn't dissolve into mist and disappear; she was living, living.
He had now the right to love any one he chose, and he did choose to
love this beautiful girl, who, with lowered eyes, was nervously
plucking the ends of the pillow tassel. It was all changed for her,
too.

"Princess!" he said a bit brokenly.

"I am called Gretchen by my friends,"--with a boldness that only
half-disguised her real timidity. What would he do, this big, handsome
fellow, who had turned out to be a prince, fairy-tale wise?

"Gretchen? I like that better than Hildegarde; it is less formal.
Well, then, Gretchen, I can't explain it, but this new order of things
has given me a tremendous backbone." He crossed the room to her side.
"You will not wed my--my father?"

"Never in all this world!"--slipping around the table, her eyes dim
like the bloom on the grape. She ought not to be afraid of him, but
she was.

"But I--"

"You have known me only four days," she whispered faintly. "You can
not know your mind."

"Oh, when one is a prince,"--laughing,--"it takes no time at all. I
love you. I knew it was going to be when you looked around in old
Bauer's smithy."

"Did I look around?"--innocently.

"You certainly did, for I looked around and saw you."

They paused. (There is no pastime quite like it.)

"But they say that I am wild like a young horse." (Love is always
finding some argument which he wishes to have knocked under.)

"Not to me,"--ardently. "You may ride a bicycle every day, if you
wish."

"I'd rather have an automobile,"--drolly.

"An airship, if money will buy it!"

"They say--my uncle says--that I am not capable of loving anything."

"What do I care what they say? Will you be my wife?"

"Give me a week to think it over."

"No."

(She liked that!)

"A day, then?"

"Not an hour!"

(She liked this still better!)

"Oh!"

"Not half an hour!"

"This is almost as bad as the duke; you are forcing me."

"If you do not answer yes or no at once, I'll go back to Barscheit and
trounce that fellow who struck m