dy stepped forward. 'Dear Mr. Harry Richmond!
Then you are better? We had most alarming news of you.'

I bowed to the Frau von Dittmarsch, anciently Miss Sibley.

'The princess?'

'She is here.'

Frau von Dittmarsch clasped Miss Goodwin's hand. I was touching
Ottilia's. A veil partly swathed her face. She trembled: the breeze
robbed me of her voice.

Our walk down the pier was almost in silence. Miss Goodwin assumed the
guardianship of the foreign ladies. I had to break from them and provide
for my aunt Dorothy and Janet.

'They went over in a little boat, they were so impatient. Who is she?'
Dorothy Beltham asked.

'The Princess Ottilia,' said Janet.

'Are you certain? Is it really, Harry?'

I confirmed it, and my aunt said, 'I should have guessed it could be no
other; she has a foreign grace.'

'General Goodwin was with them when the boat came in from the island,'
said Janet. 'He walked up to Harry's father, and you noticed, aunty, that
the ladies stood away, as if they wished to be unobserved, as we did, and
pulled down their veils. They would not wait for our boat. We passed them
crossing. People joked about the big servant over-weighing the wherry.'

Dorothy Beltham thought the water too rough for little boats.

'She knows what a sea is,' I said.

Janet gazed steadily after the retreating figures, and then commended me
to the search for rooms. The end of it was that I abandoned my father's
suite to them. An accommodating linen-draper possessed of a sea-view, and
rooms which hurled the tenant to the windows in desire for it, gave me
harbourage.

Till dusk I scoured the town to find Miss Goodwin, without whom there was
no clue to the habitation I was seeking, and I must have passed her
blindly again and again. My aunt Dorothy and Janet thanked me for my
consideration in sitting down to dine with them; they excused my haste to
retire. I heard no reproaches except on account of my not sending them
word of my illness. Janet was not warm. She changed in colour and voice
when I related what I had heard from Miss Goodwin, namely, that 'some
one' had informed the princess I was in a dying state. I was obliged to
offer up my father as a shield for Ottilia, lest false ideas should
tarnish the image of her in their minds. Janet did not speak of him. The
thought stood in her eyes; and there lies the evil of a sore subject
among persons of one household: they have not to speak to exhibit their
minds.

After a