no answer. All I ask is that when you
return you will tell me if you were successful. You may go."

Gretchen put the note away and went down-stairs. She decked her
beautiful head with a little white cap, which she wore only on Sundays
and at the opera, and braided and beribboned her hair. It never occurred
to her that there was anything unusual in the incident. It was only when
she came out into the Koenig Strasse that the puzzle of it came to her
forcibly. Who was this old woman who thought nothing of writing a letter
to her serene highness? And who were her nocturnal visitors? Gretchen
had no patience with puzzles, so she let her mind revel in the thought
that she was to see and speak to the princess whom she admired and
revered. What luck! How smoothly the world was beginning to run!

Being of a discerning mind, she idled about the Platz till after nine,
for it had been told to her that the great sleep rather late in the
morning. What should she say to her serene highness? What kind of a
curtsy should she make? These and a hundred other questions flitted
through her head. At least she would wear no humble, servile air. For
Gretchen was a bit of a socialist. Did not Herr Goldberg, whom the
police detested, did he not say that all men were equal? And surely this
sweeping statement included women! She attended secret meetings in the
damp cellar of the Black Eagle, and, while she laughed at some of the
articles in the propaganda, she received seriously enough that which
proclaimed her the equal of any one. So long as she obeyed nature's laws
and Heaven's, was she not indeed the equal of queens and princesses,
who, it was said, did not always obey these laws?

With a confidence born of right and innocence, she proceeded toward the
east or side gates of the palace. The sentry smiled at her.

"I have a letter for her serene highness," she said.

"Leave it."

"I am under orders to give it to her highness herself."

"Good day, then!" laughed the soldier. "You can not enter the gardens
without a permit."

Gretchen remembered. "Will you send some one to his excellency the
chancellor and tell him I have come from number forty Krumerweg?"

"Krumerweg? The very name ought to close any gate. But, girl, are you
speaking truthfully?"

Gretchen exhibited the note. He scratched his chin, perplexed.

"Run along. If they ask me, I'll say that I didn't see you." The sentry
resumed his beat.

Gretchen stepped inside the gate