sent every little while to inquire
how he was doing.

On the third day she said to my father at table, that she was going to
pay a visit to the court chaplain.

"I forbid your Imperial Highness to see that dog," said my father in an
icy voice that brooked no reply. "I will have his carcass thrown out of
here as soon as his condition permits."

That was the only time I heard father speak like a sovereign and man.

That Leopold nearly killed the scoundrel, as he promised to do, is
evident from the fact that the court chaplain lay in the castle three
weeks before he could be transported to a monastery. Some monks--for
none of the servants would lend a helping hand--carried him away by
night and none of the children ever saw or heard of our tormentor again.

The only sorry reminder of the episode is the estrangement of Leopold
and our mother. Though mother tried her hardest to win back the boy's
confidence and affection, he remained an iceberg towards her,
ceremonious but cold, polite but wholly indifferent.

CHAPTER VIII

PLANNING TO GET A HUSBAND FOR ME

Dissecting possible wooers at Vienna--Royalty after money, not
character--"He is a Cohen, not a Coburg"--Prince who looked like a
Jew counter-jumper in his Sunday best--Balkan princes tabooed by
Francis Joseph--A good time for the girls--Army men commanded to
attend us.

CASTLE WACHWITZ, _April 25, 1893_.

A change of scene. I was eighteen and my parents were anxious to get a
husband for me. Royalty marries off its princes at an early age to keep
them out of mischief; its princesses as soon as a profitable suitor
turns up or can be secured by politics, diplomacy, the exercise of
parental wits or the powerful influence of the head of the House.

Sister Anna, now Princess John of Hohenlohe, myself and mother were
invited to Vienna. It was my introduction to royal pomp and
circumstance. The _Hofburg_, our town lodging, seemed to me the first
and also the last cry in sumptuousness--all that was beautiful and
expensive in days gone by is there, and all that is new and desirable is
there, too; Schoenbrunn, the Imperial summer residence, is a dream of
loveliness wedded to grandeur. Between the Emperor and my mother and
between her and the numerous archduchesses and archdukes every second
word uttered referred to me as the possible wife of someone or another.
And that someone was well dissected as to fortune, success in life and
polit