stopped near one of
their picturesque encampments in order to repair a tire and I took a
picture of a young woman with a child in her arms, but when I declined
to pay her the five lei she demanded for the privilege, she flew at me
like an angry cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But her picture
was not worth five lei, as you can see for yourself.

[Illustration: A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA

The Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, hospitable, honest, and generous,
and, though he could not be described ... as a hard worker, his wife
invariably is]

[Illustration: THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF
TAKING HER PICTURE]

The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal residence as Anthony Hope has
depicted in _The Prisoner of Zenda_. It gives the impression, at first
sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables, balconies, terraces,
parapets and fountains, but one quickly forgets its architectural
shortcomings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands amid velvet
lawns and wonderful rose gardens in a sort of forest glade, from which
the pine-clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply on every side,
the beam-and-plaster walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens
of the chateau forming a striking contrast to the austerity of the
mountains and the solemnity of the encircling forest.

We had rather expected to be presented to Queen Marie with some
semblance of formality in one of the reception rooms of the chateau, but
she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that she would receive us in the
gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great
stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a
magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially
concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver
sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf
hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former
commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. I have seen many queens, but
I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular conception of
what a queen should look like as Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle
forties, her complexion is so faultless, her physique so superb, her
presence so commanding that, were she utterly unknown, she would still
be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a
crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself,
proba