om."

Blanka had hardly laid aside her wraps when a waiter knocked at her door
and presented a card on a silver salver. "Conte Benjamino de Vajdar" was
the name she read in the landlord's handwriting.

* * * * *

On the following morning, Blanka sent for the hotel-keeper and desired
him to procure for herself and her two companions admission tickets to
all the sacred ceremonies of the coming week. The worthy man fairly
gasped at the coolness of this request. Tickets to the Sistine Chapel,
to the Tenebrae, to the Benediction, and to the Glorification--and for
three persons? Why, money couldn't buy them at that late hour, he
declared. Admission tickets to paradise would be more easily obtainable.
At the very utmost, places might still be procured on some balcony
overlooking the Piazza di San Pietro, but only at extremely high prices.
Yet the view from such a position would be a fine one; and mine host,
without waiting to listen to any objections, hastened away to secure
tickets, if they were still to be had.

The princess made her lament to Gabriel Zimandy over her poor success in
obtaining what she so ardently desired, and that gentleman sought to
console her with the assurance that it was highly venturesome for
ladies to trust themselves in the crowd that always attended the church
ceremonies of Holy Week, and that she could read all about them much
more comfortably in the newspapers. Blanka, however, took so much to
heart the disappointment of her pious wishes, and came so near the point
of tear-letting, that the advocate felt obliged to sally forth in person
to see what he could do to console her. In less than an hour he was back
again, breathless and exultant. He ran up-stairs with the agility of a
much younger and less corpulent man, and hastened to the princess's
room, regardless of the fact that she was at the moment under her
hair-dresser's hands.

"Victory!" he cried, panting for breath. "The impossible is achieved,
and here are tickets for all three of us--to everything--to the Tenebrae,
the washing of feet, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, the relics, the
Benediction--"

"But how did you get them?" interrupted the ladies, overcome with
curiosity. Madam Dormandy had come hurrying out of her room at the first
sound of his voice, and she and the princess now proceeded to pelt their
victorious envoy with a volley of questions.

"Well, you see," replied the lawyer, gradually