g; but two or
three important looking envelopes claimed attention from the Grand
Duchess, and as soon as the ladies were once more alone together in
the sweet-scented garden, she broke the crown-stamped seal of her son
Adalbert, now by adoption Crown Prince of Hungaria.

"Open the others for me, dear," she demanded, excitedly, "while I see
what Dal has to say." And Virginia leisurely obeyed, wondering whether
Dal's news would by-and-by be passed on to her. It was always an event
when a long letter came from him; and the Grand Duchess invariably
laughed and exclaimed, and sometimes blushed as she read; but when she
blushed, the letter was not given to the Crown Prince's sister.

There was a note to-day from an old friend of her mother's of whom
Virginia was fond, and she had just begun to be interested in the
third paragraph, all about an adorable Dandy Dinmont puppy, when an
odd, half-stifled ejaculation from the Grand Duchess made the girl
lift her eyes.

"Has Dal been having something beyond the common in the way of
adventures?" she inquired dryly.

Her mother did not answer; but she had grown pink and then pale.

Virginia began to be uneasy. "What is the matter? Is anything wrong?"
she asked.

"No--nothing in the least wrong. Far from it, indeed. But--oh, my
child!"

"Mother dear, what is it?"

"Something so extraordinary--so wonderful--I mean, as a
coincidence--that I can hardly speak. I suppose I can't be dreaming?
You are really talking to me in the garden, aren't you?"

"I am, and I wish you were telling me the mystery. Do, dear. You look
awake, only rather odd."

"It would be strange if I didn't look odd. Dal says--Dal says--"

"What has he been doing? Getting engaged?"

"No. It is--your Emperor, not Dal, who talks of being engaged."

"Oh," said Virginia, trying not to speak blankly, trying not to flush,
trying not to show in any way the sudden sick pain in her heart.

Of course she was not in love with him. Of course, though she had been
childish enough long ago to make him her ideal, and foolishly faithful
enough to keep him so, she had always known that he would never be
more to her than a Shadow Emperor. Some day he would marry one of
those other Royal girls who were so much more suitable than she; that
would be natural and right, as she had more than once told herself
with no conscious pang. But now that the news had come--now that the
Royal girl was actually chosen, and she must hear the