nt for everything--butlers and silver keepers and lots of others.
But now my good countess is back again. She's been to see her father.
They say he's a sort of a hermit who don't want to know anything of the
world, and I must thank my countess that I got the money, for she knows
how to manage everything. And so I send you the money. Put it out
safely, and don't forget to take some of it to make a holiday for you
and the child and grandmother.

"Ah, dear Hansei, the palace folk are not all saints and honest people,
as I once used to think. Lots of thieving and deceit are carried on
here. The father of my Mademoiselle Kramer is an honorable old man;
he's the keeper of the castle here, and he's told me many things. But
one can be honest everywhere, in the palace or in the cottage by the
lake. And now, I beg of you dear Hansei--I always say 'dear Hansei,'
whenever I think of you, and that's very often. It was only last night
that I dreamt of you, but I won't tell you about that, because we
oughtn't to believe in dreams. But write to me very soon and tell me
how it goes with you; send me a good, long letter, and don't let the
time seem long till we meet again; and always think as kindly of me as
I do of you.

"Till death, your faithful WALPURGA."

In spite of their entreaties, Hansei would not tell a word of what was
in the letter; he went home quietly, and kissed his sleeping child. He
felt happy that he could thus be at home again, and that his home did
not reject him. A cold sweat came over him when he thought that he was
sleeping in this bed, and of what a changed man he might have become.
He stretched forth his hand toward his wife's bed and, in the silent
night, kissed her pillow.

"Now I'm all right again," said he. He arose, struck a light, and
removed the letter which he had put into his shoe. Then, cutting the
passage, "until death, your faithful Walpurga," out of the letter last
received, he loosened the inner sole, placed the little paper
underneath it, and fastened the sole down again. After that, he soon
fell into a sound sleep.

CHAPTER II.

"Your Majesty," said Countess Irma to the king one day, while walking
on the veranda with him--the queen was in the music-room, practicing a
classical composition with one of the court performers--"it is curious
that, while absence lends additional charms and greater merit to some
persons, there ar