n who can only adore and
sacrifice themselves for a woman when her foot is on the threshold of
vice and crime.

I saw her last during the Franco-German war, in the beautiful
_Mirabell-garden_ at Salzburg. She did not seem to feel any qualms of
conscience, for she had become considerably stouter, which made her more
attractive, more beautiful, and consequently, more dangerous, than she
was before.

THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE

The Princess Leonie was one of those beautiful, brilliant enigmas, who
irresistibly allure everyone like a Sphinx, for she was young, charming,
and singularly lovely, and understood how to heighten her charms not a
little by carefully-chosen dresses. She was a great lady of the right
stamp, and was very intellectual into the bargain, which is not the case
with all aristocratic ladies; she also took great interest in art and
literature, and it was even said that she patronized one of our poets in
a manner which was worthy of the Medicis, and that she strewed the
beautiful roses of continual female sympathy on to his thorny path. All
this was evident to everybody, and had nothing strange about it, but the
world would have liked to know the history of that woman, and to look
into the depths of her soul, and because people could not do this in
Princess Leonie's case, they thought it very strange.

No one could read that face, which was always beautiful, always cheerful,
and always the same; no one could fathom those large, dark, unfathomable
eyes, which hid their secrets under the unvarying brilliancy of majestic
repose, like a mountain lake, whose waters look black on account of their
depth. For everybody was agreed that the beautiful princess had her
secrets, interesting and precious secrets, like all other ladies of our
fashionable world.

Most people looked upon her as a flirt who had no heart, and even no
blood, and they asserted that she was only virtuous because the power of
loving was denied her, but that she took all the more pleasure in seeing
that she was loved, and that she set her trammels and enticed her
victims, until they surrendered at discretion at her feet, so that she
might leave them to their fate, and hurry off in pursuit of some fresh
game.

Others declared that the beautiful woman had met with her romances in
life, and was still having them, but, as a thorough Messalina, she knew
how to conceal her adventures as cleverly as that French queen who had
every one of her lov