y, unconscious of what she was doing. The last
extremity was reached when the collection-plate began its rounds; the
moderate people threw in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributed
silver, but she laid a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before
her with a sounding slap! I said to myself, "She has parted with all her
little hoard to buy the consideration of these unpitying people--it is a
sorrowful spectacle." I did not venture to look around this time; but
as the service closed, I said to myself, "Let them laugh, it is their
opportunity; but at the door of this church they shall see her step into
our fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home."

Then she rose--and all the congregation stood while she walked down the
aisle. She was the Empress of Germany!

No--she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. My
imagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is always
hopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpreting
everything, clear through to the end. The young lady with her imperial
Majesty was a maid of honor--and I had been taking her for one of her
boarders, all the time.

This is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personal
protection; and considering my inexperience, I wonder I got through
with it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I had
known earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands.

We found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. It is
said that she never attends any but the English form of church service.

I lay abed and read and rested from my journey's fatigues the remainder
of that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the afternoon
service, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit of
attending church twice every Sunday.

There was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the band
play the "Fremersberg." This piece tells one of the old legends of the
region; how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains,
and wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at last
the faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnight
service, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came
from and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the music, without
ceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it could
hardly be distinguished--but it was always there; it swung grandly along
throu