he
shadowy recesses at the end of the shop. She gave him but a cursory
glance, in which no interest was apparent, and glided quietly into the
little nook behind the counter, almost at his elbow. His heart enjoyed a
lively thump. Here was the first noticeably good-looking woman he had
seen in Edelweiss, and, by the powers, she was a sword-maker's niece!

The old man looked sharply at him for an instant, and a quick little
smile writhed in and out among the mass of wrinkles. Instead of passing
directly out of the shop, Spantz stopped a moment to give the girl some
suddenly recalled instruction. Truxton King, you may be sure, did not
precede the old man into the street. He deliberately removed his hat and
waited most politely for age to go before youth, in the meantime blandly
gazing upon the face of this amazing niece.

Across the square, at one of the tables, he awaited his chance and a
plausible excuse for questioning the old man without giving offence.
Somewhere back in his impressionable brain there was growing a distinct
hope that this beautiful young creature with the dreamy eyes was
something more than a mere shopgirl. It had occurred to him in that one
brief moment of contact that she had the air, the poise of a true
aristocrat.

The old man, over his huge mug of beer, was properly grateful. He was
willing to repay King for his little attention by giving him a careful
history of Graustark, past, present and future, from the time of Tartar
rule to the time of the so-called "American invasion." ills glowing
description of the little Prince might have interested Truxton in his
Lord Fauntleroy days, but just at present he was more happily engaged in
speculating on the true identify of the girl in the gun-shop. He
recalled the fact that a former royal princess of Graustark had gone
sight-seeing over the world, incognita, as a Miss Guggenslocker, and had
been romantically snatched up by a lucky American named Lorry. What if
this girl in the gun-shop should turn out to be a--well, he could hardly
hope for a princess; but she might be a countess.

The old mart was rambling on. "The young Prince has lived most of his
life in Washington and London and Paris, sir. He's only seven, sir. Of
course, you remember the dreadful accident that made him an orphan and
put him on the throne with the three 'wise men of the East' as regents
or governors. The train wreck near Brussels, sir? His mother, the
glorious Princess Yetive, wa