g of Krak, Krak in far-off
Styria? Perhaps for once, when Victoria was hitting covertly at Krak, my
mother remarked in a very cold voice:

"You remember your punishments, you don't remember your offences,
Victoria."

I could linger long on these small matters, for I find more interest and
incitement to analysis in the attitude of women toward women than in
their more obvious relations with men; but I must pass over a year of
veiled conflict, and come to that incident which is the salient point in
Victoria's girlish history. It coincided almost exactly in time with the
dismissal of Geoffrey Owen, and my pre-occupation with that event
diverted my attention from the earlier stages of Victoria's affair. She
was just seventeen, grown up in her own esteem (and she adduced many
precedents to fortify her contention), but in my mother's eyes still
wanting a year of quiet home life before she should be launched into
society. Victoria acquiesced perforce, but turned the flank of the
decree by ensuring that the home life should be by no means quiet. She
set to work to prepare for us a play; comedy or tragedy I knew not then,
and am not now quite clear. Our nearest neighbour at Artenberg dwelt
across the river in the picturesque old castle of Waldenweiter; he was a
young man of twenty-two at this time, handsome, pleasant, and ready for
amusement. His father being dead, Frederick was his own master--that is
to say, he had no master. Victoria fell in love with him. The Baron, it
seemed, was not disinclined for a romance with a pretty princess;
perhaps he thought that nothing serious would come of it, and that it
was a pleasant way enough of passing a summer; or, perhaps, being but
twenty-two, he did not think at all, unless to muse on the depth of the
blue in Victoria's eyes, and the comely lines of her figure as she rowed
on the river. To say truth, Victoria gave him small time for reflection.

As I am convinced, before he had well considered the situation he had
fallen into the habit of attending a _rendezvous_ in a backwater of the
stream about a mile above Artenberg. Victoria never went out
unaccompanied, and never came back unaccompanied; it was discovered
afterward that the trusted old boatman could be bought off with the
price of beer, and used to disembark and seek an ale house so soon as
the backwater was reached. The meeting over, Victoria would return in
high spirits and displaying an unusual affection toward my mother,