progress before I arrived, it was with much difficulty I could
avoid being served with soup and all the earlier delicacies of the
entertainment.

I will not dwell on the day that to recall seems more to me like a page
out of a fairy tale than a little incident of daily life. I was, indeed,
to all intents, the enchanted prince of a story, who went about with the
lovely princess on his arm, for I danced the mazurka with the Fraulein
Sara, and was her partner several times during the evening, and finished
the fete with her in the cotillon; she declaring, in that calm quiet
voice that did not seek to be unheard around, that I alone could dance
the waltz a deux temps, and that I slid gently, and did not spring like
a Fiumano, or bound like a French bagman,--a praise that brought on
me some very menacing looks from certain commis-voyageurs near me, and
which I, confident in my "skill of fence," as insolently returned.

"You are not to return to the Hof, Herr von Owen, tomorrow," said she,
as we parted. "You are to wait on papa at his office at eleven o'clock."
And there was a staid dignity in her words that spoke command; but in
styling me "von" there was a whole world of recognition, and I kissed
her hand as I said good-night with all the deference of her slave, and
all the devotion of one who already felt her power and delighted in it.

CHAPTER XX. OUR INNER LIFE

Let me open this chapter with an apology, and I mean it not only to
extend to errors of the past, but to whatever similar blunders I may
commit hereafter. What I desire to ask pardon for is this: I find in
this attempt of mine to jot down a portion of my life, that I have laid
a most disproportionate stress on some passages the most insignificant
and unimportant. Thus, in my last chapter I have dwelt unreasonably on
the narrative of one day's pleasure, while it may be that a month,
or several months, shall pass over with scarcely mention. For this
fault--and I do not attempt to deny it is a fault--I have but one
excuse. It is this: my desire has been to place before my reader the
events, small as they might be, that influenced my life and decided
my destiny. Had I not gone to this fetey for instance,--had I taken my
holiday in some quiet ramble into the hills alone, or had I passed
it, as I have passed scores of happy hours, in the solitude of my own
room,--how different might have been my fate!

We all of us know how small and apparently insignificant a