The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-12-12
THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

in strict incognito and in humble fash
ion under the name of the Countess DIES
Sept hateaux. She was accompanied
by the old Baroness Georgenthal, her
companion, and Gen. Horschowitz, her
equerry. In spite of furs and foot
warmers, it is very cold in the reserved
compartment; and when the Queen,
growing weary Of her English novel,
and worried by the Generals knitting
for the General knitted-wanted to
look out on the snow-covered country,
she was obliged to rub the glass of her
carriage window for q minute or two
with her handkerchief, the frost had
covered it so thickly with glittering
tracery and delicate ferns of ice. It
was q strange caprice, certainly, and
worthy of her Majesty's twenty years,
to set out for Paris in midwinter to
join her mother, the Queen of Moravia,
who was to have visited her in Prague
the following spring. However, moth
ing would do but she must start on the
journey, with the thermometer sixteen
degrees below freezing point. The baro-
ness had to shake up her old rheuma-
tism, and the General in despair had to
leave behind a magnificent counterpart
he was knitting for his daughter-in-law,
op1 IN oop{,,t hio,,alf ,r;lb uor1-,,r n
simple pair of worsted stockings by way
of occupation on the road. 1t was a
rough journey. The whole of Europe
lay covered with snow, and they had
come half Way across it, and all sorts
of difficulties and ~hindrances, by rail
ways that we're disorganized by the
hard weather.
Now they are getting near the end Of
their journey. At nine o'clock they
dined at the buffet at Macon, and al
though this evening the foot-warmers
are again hardly lukewarm, and outside
great snowfakes float about in the dark.
ness, the baroness and the general
both slumbering in a corner under furs
and railway rugs-are dreaming of theii
arrival in Paris. The good old lady is
full of the advantages she will fnG
there for special religious exercises
and the old soldier, Of a certain WOO
shop In the Rue Saint Honore, to which
he means to pay an early visit. the only
shop at which he can match his greer
Berlin wool skeins satisfactorily.
The queen is not asleep. Size sit.
there buried i'll thought, with her eyes
-s1, o,o,, -, t1o ,1,1,r, ,,ai, 49,,
shivering in her blue fox furs, with he,
elbow leaning on tie window-sill ant
one hand clenched in the beautiful ruff
fled golden hair that has fallen loos,
from her coquettish little travelling cap
listening mechanically to the vague
distant music that the tired ears of til
travellers seem to hear in the iron gallon
of tile express. She is looking bacl
over her whole past life, this poor young
queen, and thinking how miserable sh'
Is.
She saw herself as she used to be
when she was a little princess with rec
hands and an uniformed figure, playing
with her twin sister, whom they hat
married far away in the north-the sis
ter she was so fond of and who was 81
like her, that when they were dressed
in the same way they had to put RIB
bons of different color in their hair tina
they might not be mistaken one for TIL
other. That was before the revolution
that overturned her parents's throne
She had loved the calm and sleepy at
mosphere of the little court of Olmutz
where etiquette was tempered by sucl
easy-going good nature. In those day
her father, good King Louis V.-whc
since then had died in exile of a broker
heart-used to walk through the parl
with her and her sister, in his tour
dress every afternoon at 4 O'Clock
to take cafe au lait in the Chinese pa
vilion, covered with ivy vines, lookin.
out on the river and the far off circle O
hills red tinted in the autumn.
Then came her marriage and til
presentation ball one beautiful night il
July, when the murmer of the crowd
in the Illuminated gardens had come VI
through the open windows. How sh
had tremblcd when she was left alone
moment in the conversatory with til
young king. She loved him already
she had loved him from the first mo
ment she had seen him. as he came for
ward, with the white plume il his car
so graceful and elegant in his blue uni
form and diamonds, with the gold spur
on his small gray boots ringing at ever
step. After the first waltz Ottokar ha
taken her arm, and, stroking his Ion
black moustache the while, had led he
into the conservatory and made her s.
down under q palm tree. Then sittin
beside her he had taken her hand i
that grand, easy way Of his, and locke
into her eyes and asked her, princess
will you do me the honor of becomin
nv wife," And she had blushed an
looked down, and, holding her hand t
her heart to still its wild beating, ha
answered him, eyes, SIRE" while til
Tzigones' yiolins suddenly crashed OF
the first note of the "Tcheque March,
that sublime song of triumph and Ell
thusiasm.
Alas! how soon chat happiness ha
fed! Six months of error and illusion
scarcely six months-and then one da,
before her baby was born, she foun
out by a cruel chance that she ha
been deceived, that the king did ne
love her, that he never had loved he
and that the very day after his ma.
riage he had supped with Gazella, til
first dancer of the Prague Theatr,
light woman And that was not al
She had found out-what every OF
but herself knew-Ottokar's old liaiso
with tile Countess P%zilorann, by whol
lie had three children, whom he ha
never abandoned, in the midst of
hundred caprices, and whom lie hn
actually dared to make first lady !