she added, "and it will be pleasant to
remember that I've known you in your home."

She beckoned Madame Gunther to draw near, and, accompanied by her,
walked about the garden.

"And so I see you to-day, for the first time," said the queen. "I trust
that you do not look upon me as a stranger?"

"Your Majesty, it is the first time in my life that I address a queen,
and I entreat you--"

"Your husband has been as a father to me, and I wish that you,
too-- But let us leave it to the future to determine our impressions of
each other. Permit me, however, to request you to cast aside a little
of your Swiss prejudice against royalty."

"Your Majesty, I am a citizen of your country."

"I am delighted that our first meeting is in your own house. Do you
still sing much? I've been told that you used to sing beautifully."

"Your Majesty, I've left that to the younger voices of my children.
Paula sings."

"How charming! I have long regretted that none of the ladies of our
more immediate circle sing well."

Like a passing shadow, the thought of Irma flashed through the queen's
mind. She was standing by the stream that flowed down from the mountain
meadow, and which here noisily rushed by.

The queen remained in the pavilion but a short time. When she was about
to leave, she said to Madame Gunther:

"Will you not accompany me part of the way?"

"No, I thank Your Majesty."

"Then I shall see you to-morrow. Good-night. Let us be good neighbors."

The queen left.

Gunther well knew how the ladies of the court would discuss his wife's
great breach of decorum in declining to comply with the queen's
expressed wish. But he did not say a word to his wife about it, for he
knew that he could permit her to have her own way. He felt sure that
she would always do what was right, and that, if she did disregard
certain conventionalities, she would nevertheless manage everything for
the best. Indeed, the very fact of her having gently repelled the
queen's exceedingly gracious advances, was doubly reassuring to him.

"I am glad," said Madame Gunther to her husband, when they were
together in the drawing-room, "that Paula becomes introduced to court
life while yet in her father's house. The queen really impresses me as
a noble creature."

Gunther assented, and added that Paula had already proven how well she
had profited by Bronnen's advice. For Bronnen had told her that, in
order to be free at court, one must make its trifling fo