ot to the Countess'?"

"Indeed, no. To Wetter's."

"Ah! The singer?"

"The singer of my marriage-song, Victoria."

Victoria looked at me in a rather despairing fashion.

"Her singing of it," I added, "will be the most perfect and appropriate
thing in the world. You'll be delighted when you hear it. For the rest,
my dear sister, Hammerfeldt looks down from heaven and is well pleased."

Victoria sat on the sofa again. I went to the window, unfastened the
shutters, and pulled up the blinds. A single star shone yet in the gray
sky. I stood looking at it for a few minutes, then lit a cigarette, and
turned round. Victoria was on the sofa still; she was crying in a quiet
matter-of-fact way, not passionately, but with a rather methodical air.
She glanced at me for a moment, but said nothing. Neither did I speak. I
leaned against the wall and smoked my cigarette. For five minutes, I
should suppose, this state of things went on. Then I flung away the
cigarette, Victoria stopped crying, wiped her eyes, and got up.

"I rather wish we'd been born in the gutter," said she. "Good-night,
dear."

She kissed me, and I bade her good-night.

"I must get some sleep, or I shall look frightful. I hope William
Adolphus won't be snoring very loud, I hear him so plainly through the
wall," she said as she started for the door.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AS BEDERHOF ARRANGED.

Of the next day I have three visions.

I see myself with Krak and Princess Heinrich. Pride illuminated their
faces with a cold radiance, and their utterances were conceived in the
spirit of a _Nunc Dimittis_. They congratulated the world on its Ruler,
the kingdom on its King, themselves on my account, me on theirs. To Krak
I was her achievement; to my mother the vindication of the support she
had given to Krak, and the refutation of my own grumblings and
rebellion. How could I not be reminded of my coronation day? How not
smile when the Princess, after observing regretfully that the Baroness
would not be able to educate my children, bade me inculcate her
principles in the mind of their tutor or governess. She was afraid, she
said, that dear Elsa might be a little lacking in firmness, a little
prone to that indulgence which is no true kindness in the end. "The very
reverse of it, madame," added Krak.

"It's quite time enough for them to begin to do as they like when they
grow up," said the Princess Heinrich.

"By then, though," said Krak, "they will have lea