at any moment.

We had our coffee and rolls in a kind of bower close to the terrace; and
afterwards I did walk along the level path, fenced in with a tangle of
roses--pink, and white, and gold, and crimson--as far as a high shelf,
cut into the face of the sheer cliff which plunges vertically down, down
into the blue-green water. The Prince was my companion, and he (who has
distinguished friends in the neighbourhood, which he has visited before)
told me a strange story of the place. Once, he said, the Princes of
Stanga were lords of the land here, and a certain daughter of the house
was famous as the handsomest and cruellest Princess of her time. Despite
her dreadful disposition, she had crowds of lovers, whom she used to
invite to walk with her by moonlight, after a _tete-a-tete_ supper. She
would lead them to this very spot on which we stood, and just as she had
lured them on to make a burning declaration of love she would give a
laugh, and a sudden push, which hurled them to death in the lake far
below. How different, judging from what I have read in the ladies'
magazines, from the home-life of our dear Princesses of to-day! And how
different from _my_ habits, if I am asked to become, and do become, a
Princess. I should have liked to throw out some delicate little
suggestion of this sort, and perhaps would have found the right words,
had not Beechy appeared at that moment with Sir Ralph. Then my whole
attention was taken up, as it had been during breakfast, by tactfully
staving off any allusion on the Prince's part to my birthday. All was in
vain, however; he said something gallant, and I was quite as giddy for a
few seconds as one of the wicked Princess's lovers, lest Beechy should
be in an impish mood and throw out allusions to my age. But she was as
good as a kitten, though she looked at me in a naughty way, and only
said, "Would any one believe Mamma was twenty-nine to-day--if it weren't
for Me?"

When we went indoors afterwards I gave her that ruby heart ring of mine
that she likes.

All day long we were busy doing agreeable things. We lunched down by the
lake shore, in the garden of a big hotel there, and afterwards were
rowed across to Cadenabbia, in one of the canopied boats, to visit the
Villa Carlotta in its wonderful terraced garden. I was delighted with
the boat and the man who rowed us, in his white clothes and scarlet
sash, but the Prince half-whispered in my ear that he was going to show
me somethin