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"Don't bother aboutlike this Sit down"

This was a command and Gretchen obeyed with alacrity It would not be difficult, thought Gretchen, to love a princess like this, as not only lovely but sensible The two sat ely alike Their eyes nearly matched, their hair, even the shape of their faces They were siraceful, after the raceful directly from the hands of nature The health of outdoors was visible in their fine skins and clear eyes The marked difference lay, of course, in their hands The princess had never toiled with her fingers except on the piano Gretchen had plucked geese and dug vegetables with hers They were rough, but toil had not robbed thehness asked

"About the sahness"

"Have you wondered why she should write to hness, it was natural that I should," was Gretchen's frank admission

"She took ht me music so that soan Ah," impulsively, "had I my way she would be housed in the palace, not in the lonely Kru; and we dare not tell hi to do withthis peasant her confidante What a whihness, that could not be"

"No, Gretchen; she had nothing to do with it" Her highness leveled her gaze at the flowers, but her eyes saw only the garret or the barnlike loneliness of the opera during rehearsals

Gretchen did not ; and she herself had drea"

"La-la--la!" sang the princess capriciously

"La-la--la!" sang Gretchen s Her voice was not purer or sweeter; it wasbeen accusto book and whip and folding the note inside the book "Who taught you to sing?"

"Nobody, highness"

"What do you do?"

"I airl; in the fall and winter I work at odd tile? A tavern?"

"Yes, Highness"

"Tell me all about yourself"

This was easy for Gretchen; there was so little

"Neither irl like you must have a sweetheart"