and dinner tables, arranged the
fruit in artistic fashion, and was supreme in exacting dinner-dress and
the due observance of all proper etiquette. Julia was inflexible on this
point; for, as she said, "though people laugh at deposed princes for
their persistence in maintaining a certain state and a certain pageantry
in their exile, without these, what becomes of their prestige, and what
becomes of themselves? they merge into a new existence, and lose their
very identity. We, too, may be 'restored' one of these days, and let it
be our care not to have forgotten the habits of our station." There was
in this, as in most she said, a semi-seriousness that made one doubt
when she was in earnest; and this half-quizzing manner enabled her
to carry out her will and bear down opposition in many cases where a
sterner logic would have failed her.

Her greatest art of all, however, was to induce the others to believe
that the chief charm of their present existence was its isolation. She
well knew that while she herself and Nelly would never complain of the
loneliness of their lives, their estrangement from the world and all
its pursuits, its pleasures and its interests, the young men would soon
discover what monotony marked their days, how uneventful they were, and
how uniform. To convert all these into merits, to make them believe that
this immunity from the passing accidents of life was the greatest of
blessings, to induce them to regard the peace in which they lived as
the highest charm that could adorn existence, and at the same time not
suffer them to lapse into dreamy inactivity or lethargic indifference,
was a great trial of skill, and it was hers to achieve it. As she said,
not without a touch of vainglory, one day to Nelly, "How intensely eager
I have made them about small things. Your brother was up at daylight to
finish his rock-work for the creepers, and George felled that tree for
the keel of his new boat before breakfast. Think of that, Nelly; and
neither of them as much as asked if the post had brought them letters
and newspapers. Don't laugh, dearest. When men forget the post-hour,
there is something wonderfully good or bad has befallen them."

"But it is strange, after all, Ju, how little we have come to care for
the outer world. I protest I am glad to think that there are only two
mails a week,--a thing that when we came here, I would have pronounced
unendurable."

"To George and myself it matters little," said