ario_ of the day. The remote probability of meeting anyone here
who knew the Princess reassured her, and there speedily came over her
a sense of delight in all the kaleidoscopic bewilderment of this great
entertainment. She saw that each one there had interest in someone
else, and, to her great relief, found herself left entirely alone with
reasonable assurance that this remoteness would continue to befriend her
until the final gauntlet of leave-taking had to be run; a trial still to
be encountered, the thought of which she resolutely put away from her,
trusting to the luck that had hitherto not deserted her.

Jennie was in this complaisant frame of mind when she was suddenly
startled by a voice at her side.

"Ah, Princess, I have been searching everywhere for you, catching
glimpses of you now and then, only to lose you, as, alas, has been my
fate on more serious occasion. May I flatter myself with the belief that
you also remember?"

There was no recognition in the large frightened eyes that were turned
upon him. They saw a young man bowing low over the unresisting hand he
had taken. His face was clear-cut and unmistakably English. Jennie saw
his closely-cropped auburn head, and, as it raised until it overtopped
her own, the girl, terrified as she was, could not but admire the
sweeping blonde moustache that overshadowed a smile, half-wistful,
half-humorous, which lighted up his handsome face. The ribbon of some
order was worn athwart his breast; otherwise he wore court dress, which
well became his stalwart frame.

"I am disconsolate to see that I am indeed forgotten, Princess, and so
another cherished delusion fades away from me."

Her fan concealed the lower part of the girl's face, and she looked at
him over its fleecy semicircle.

"Put not your trust in princesses," she murmured, a sparkle of latent
mischief lighting up her eyes.

The young man laughed. "Indeed," he said, "had I served my country as
faithfully as I have been true to my remembrance of you, Princess, I
would have been an ambassador long ere this, covered with decorations.
Have you then lost all recollection of that winter in Washington five
years ago; that whirlwind of gaiety which ended by wafting you away to a
foreign country, and thus the eventful season clings to my memory as
if it were a disastrous western cyclone? Is it possible that I must
re-introduce myself as Donal Stirling?"

"Not Lord Donal Stirling?" asked Jennie, dimly rememberi