nd the money I waste upon him
when he _isn't_ Colonel Clay, the man is beginning to tell upon my
nervous system. I shall withdraw altogether from this worrying life.
I shall retire from a scheming and polluted world to some untainted
spot in the fresh, pure mountains."

"You _must_ need rest and change," I said, "when you talk like that.
Let us try the Tyrol."

IV

THE EPISODE OF THE TYROLEAN CASTLE

We went to Meran. The place was practically decided for us by
Amelia's French maid, who really acts on such occasions as our
guide and courier.

She is _such_ a clever girl, is Amelia's French maid. Whenever we
are going anywhere, Amelia generally asks (and accepts) her advice
as to choice of hotels and furnished villas. Cesarine has been all
over the Continent in her time; and, being Alsatian by birth, she of
course speaks German as well as she speaks French, while her long
residence with Amelia has made her at last almost equally at home
in our native English. She is a treasure, that girl; so neat and
dexterous, and not above dabbling in anything on earth she may be
asked to turn her hand to. She walks the world with a needle-case
in one hand and an etna in the other. She can cook an omelette on
occasion, or drive a Norwegian cariole; she can sew, and knit, and
make dresses, and cure a cold, and do anything else on earth you ask
her. Her salads are the most savoury I ever tasted; while as for her
coffee (which she prepares for us in the train on long journeys),
there isn't a chef de cuisine at a West-end club to be named in the
same day with her.

So, when Amelia said, in her imperious way, "Cesarine, we want to go
to the Tyrol--now--at once--in mid-October; where do you advise us
to put up?"--Cesarine answered, like a shot, "The Erzherzog Johann,
of course, at Meran, for the autumn, madame."

"Is he ... an archduke?" Amelia asked, a little staggered at such
apparent familiarity with Imperial personages.

"Ma foi! no, madame. He is an hotel--as you would say in England,
the 'Victoria' or the 'Prince of Wales's'--the most comfortable
hotel in all South Tyrol; and at this time of year, naturally, you
must go beyond the Alps; it begins already to be cold at Innsbruck."

So to Meran we went; and a prettier or more picturesque place, I
confess, I have seldom set eyes on. A rushing torrent; high hills
and mountain peaks; terraced vineyard slopes; old walls and towers;
quaint, arcaded streets; a craggy water