n was
permitted to preach unless clothed in clerical robes in the pulpit. It
happened that I had not taken my clerical robes with me--I am constantly
forgetting those clerical robes!--so the pastor of the church kindly
offered me his robes.

Now the pastor was six feet tall and broad in proportion, and I, as I
have already confessed, am very short. His robes transformed me into
such an absurd caricature of a preacher that it was quite impossible for
me to wear them. What, then, were we to do? Lacking clerical robes, the
police would not allow me to utter six words. It was finally decided
that the clergyman should meet the letter of the law by entering the
pulpit in his robes and standing by my side while I delivered my sermon.
The law soberly accepted this solution of the problem, and we offered
the congregation the extraordinary tableau of a pulpit combining a large
and impressive pastor standing silently beside a small and inwardly
convulsed woman who had all she could do to deliver her sermon with the
solemnity the occasion required.

At this same conference I made one of the few friendships I enjoy with
a member of a European royal family, for I met the Princess Blank of
Italy, who overwhelmed me with attention during my visit, and from whom
I still receive charming letters. She invited me to visit her in her
castle in Italy, and to accompany her to her mother's castle in Austria,
and she finally insisted on knowing exactly why I persistently refused
both invitations.

"Because, my dear Princess," I explained, "I am a working-woman."

"Nobody need KNOW that," murmured the Princess, calmly.

"On the contrary," I assured her, "it is the first thing I should
explain."

"But why?" the Princess wanted to know.

I studied her in silence for a moment. She was a new and interesting
type to me, and I was glad to exchange viewpoints with her.

"You are proud of your family, are you not?" I asked. "You are proud of
your great line?"

The Princess drew herself up. "Assuredly," she said.

"Very well," I continued. "I am proud, too. What I have done I have done
unaided, and, to be frank with you, I rather approve of it. My work is
my patent of nobility, and I am not willing to associate with those from
whom it would have to be concealed or with those who would look down
upon it."

The Princess sighed. I was a new type to her, too, as new as she was to
me; but I had the advantage of her, for I could understand her po