y up from Italy; and Autumn, coming down from
the north sunburnt, fruit-laden, and blest, goes slowly when she
reaches it, lingering there with her serenity and ripeness, her calm
skies and her windless days long after the Saxons and Prussians have
lit their stoves and got out their furs. There figs can be eaten off
the trees in one's garden, and vineyards glow on the hillsides. There
the people are Catholics, and the Protestant pastor casts no shadow of
a black gown across life. There as you walk along the white roads, you
pass the image of the dead Christ by the wayside; mute reminder to
those who would otherwise forget of the beauty of pitifulness and
love. And there, so near is Kunitz to the soul of things, you may any
morning get into the train after breakfast and in the afternoon find
yourself drinking coffee in the cool colonnades of the Piazza San
Marco at Venice.

Kunitz is the capital of the duchy, and the palace is built on a hill.
It is one of those piled-up buildings of many windows and turrets and
battlements on which the tourist gazes from below as at the
realization of a childhood's dream. A branch of the river Loth winds
round the base of the hill, separating the ducal family from the
red-roofed town along its other bank. Kunitz stretches right round the
hill, lying clasped about its castle like a necklet of ancient stones.
At the foot of the castle walls the ducal orchards and kitchen gardens
begin, continuing down to the water's edge and clothing the base of
the hill in a garment of blossom and fruit. No fairer sight is to be
seen than the glimpse of these grey walls and turrets rising out of a
cloud of blossom to be had by him who shall stand in the market place
of Kunitz and look eastward up the narrow street on a May morning; and
if he who gazes is a dreamer he could easily imagine that where the
setting of life is so lovely its days must of necessity be each like a
jewel, of perfect brightness and beauty.

The Princess Priscilla, however, knew better. To her unfortunately the
life within the walls seemed of a quite blatant vulgarity; pervaded by
lacqueys, by officials of every kind and degree, by too much food, too
many clothes, by waste, by a feverish frittering away of time, by a
hideous want of privacy, by a dreariness unutterable. To her it was a
perpetual behaving according to the ideas officials had formed as to
the conduct to be expected of princesses, a perpetual pretending not
to see th