iding-lesson to-day?"

"I don't know. Nikky has not come."

"Where is he?"

Here the drop of nicotine got in its deadly work. "I'm afraid he is
ill," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. "He said he smoked too many
cigarettes, and--"

"Is Captain Larisch ill?" Hedwig looked at the governess, and lost some
of her bright color.

Miss Braithwaite did not know, and said so. "At the very least," she
went on, "he should have sent some word. I do not know what things
are coming to. Since His Majesty's illness, no one seems to have any
responsibility, or to take any."

"But of course he would have sent word," said Hedwig, frowning: "I don't
understand it. He has never been so late before, has he?"

"He has never been late at all," Prince Ferdinand William Otto spoke up
quickly.

After a time Hedwig went away, and the Crown Prince took off his
riding-clothes. He ate a very small luncheon, swallowing mostly a glass
of milk and a lump in his throat. And afterward he worked at the frame,
for an hour, shading the hearts carefully. At three o'clock he went for
his drive.

There were two variations to the daily drive: One day they went up the
river--almost as far as the monastery; the next day they went through
the park. There was always an excitement about the park drive, because
the people who spied the gold-wheeled carriage always came as close
as possible, to see if it was really the Crown Prince. And when, as
sometimes happened, it was only Hedwig, or Hilda, and Ferdinand William
Otto had been kept at home by a cold, they always looked disappointed.

This was the park day. The horses moved sedately. Beppo looked severe
and haughty. A strange man, in the place of Hans, beside Beppo, watched
the crowd with keen and vigilant eyes. On the box between them, under
his hand, the new footman had placed a revolver. Beppo sat as far away
from it as he dared. The crowd lined up, and smiled and cheered. And
Prince Ferdinand William Otto sat very straight; and bowed right and
left, smiling.

Old Adelbert, limping across the park to, the Opera, paused and looked.
Then he shook his head. The country was indeed come to a strange pass,
with only that boy and the feeble old King to stand between it and the
things of which men whispered behind their hands. He went on, with
his head down. A strange pass indeed, with revolution abroad in quiet
places, and a cabal among the governors of the Opera to sell the
opera-glass privilege to the