The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1885-01-16
The QUEEN or BOHEMIA.

warmers, Ills very Geld In the reserved
compartments and when the Queen,
growing weary of her English novel,
and worried by the Generate Knitting
for the General knittcd-wanted to
look out on the snow.covered country,
abe was obliged to rub the glass of her
carriage window for minute or two
with her handkerchief, tho frost had
covered it so thickly with ALTERING
tzacery and delicate ferns OF ice. Il
was o strange caprice. certainly, and
worthy of her Majesty's twenty Years.
to set out for Paris ia sAidwinter to
join her mother, the Queen of Morayia.
who was to have visited her in Prague
the following Spring. However, moth.
ing would do bat she must start on the
journey, with the Thermometer sixteen
degrees below freezing point. Tho baro.
ness had to shake up her old fheuma-
tisn,. and the General in despair had to
leave behind magnificent couuterpane
he was knitting for his daugh in law,
and to content himself with working q
simple pair OF worstcd stockings by way
of occupation ON the road. It was
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 were disorganized by the
hard weather.
Now they are getting near the end of
their journey. At nine o'clock they
dined at the buffet ct Macon, and al.
though this evening the foot warmers
are again hardly lukewarm, and outside
great snowflakes float about in the dark
ness, the baroness and the general
both slumbering in corner under furs
and railway rugs-are dreaming of their
arrival in Paris. Tho good old lady ia
full Of the advantages she will End
there for special religious exercises;
and the old soldier, Of Acerta,n wool
shop IN the Rue Saint Honore, to which
he means to pay an early visit. the only
shop at which he can match his green
Berlin wool skeins satisfactorily.
The queen is not asleep. Size sits
there buried in thought, with her eyes
wide open in tho shadow, feverish and
shivering in her blue fox furs, with her
elbow leaning on the window-sill and
one hand clenched in tho beautiful ruff.
fled golden hair that has fallen loose
from her coquettish little travelling cap,
listening mechanically to tho vague,
distant music that the tired ears of the
travellers seem to hear in the iron gallon
of the express. She is looking back
over her whole past life, this poor young
queen, and thinking how miserable she
il. WIZ
She saw herself as she used to be,
when she was little princess with red
hands and an Uniformed figure, playing
with her twin sister, whom they had
married far away in the north.-the sis
ter she was so fond Of and who was 80
like her. that when they were dressed
in the Same way they had to put RIB
bons OF different color in their hair that
they might not be mistaken one for the
osher. 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 Oimutz.
where etiquette was tempered by such
easy going good nature. In those DAYS
her father, good King Louis WHO
since then had died in exile of broken
heart-used to walk through the park
with her and her eister, in his court
dress every afternoon at o'clock,
to take cafe au lait in the Chinese pa.
vllion, covered with ivy vines, looking
out On ehe river and the far off circle Of
mills red tinted in the autumn.
Then came her marriage and the
presentation ball one beautiful night in
July, when the murmer of the crowds
in the Illuminated gardens had come no
through the open windows. How she
had trembled when she was left alone a
moment IN the conversatorv with the
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 in his can.
60 graceful and elegant in his blue uni.
form and diamonds, with the gold spurs
on AIS small gray boots ringing at every
step. After the first waltz Ottokar had
taken her arm, and, stroking his long
black moustache the while, had led her
into the conservatory and made her sit
down under palm tree. Then sitting
beside her he had taken her hand in
that grand, easy way of his, and looked
INTO her eyes and asked her, princess,
VIII you do me the honor of becoming
my wife?" And she had blushed and
looked down. and, holding her hand to
her heart to still its wild beating, had
answered him, "Yes, sire;" while the
Izigones' violins suddenly crashed out
the first note of the "Tcheque March,
that sublime song of triumph and en-
thusiasm.
Alasl how soon that happiness had
fed! Six months of error and illusion
scarcely six months-and then one day,
before her bah; was born, she found
out by o cruel chance that she had
been deceived, that the king did not
love her, that he never had loved her,
and that the very day after his mar.
risge he had supped with Gazella, the
first dancer of the Prague Theatre,
light woman. And that WAS not all!
She had found out-what every one
but herself knew-Ottokars old liaison
with the Countess Pzilorann, by whom
lie had three children, whom he had
never abandoned in the midst Of q
hundred caprices, and whom lie had
actually dared to make first lady in
waiting to his wife. The Queens love
was killed on the spot-the delicate.
shy love she had never dared to confess
to her husband, tho love that she now
compared to tame bird she had killed
when she was little girl, squeezing IL
suddenly in her hand when she had
been startled by the noise of q servant
breaking vases
She had son certainly, and she Low.
ed him, but it was terrible sometimes.
when she was sitting by the gilded and
coroneted cradle Of her little sleeping
Wla.lislas, to feel cold SILVER pass
over her heart at the sight of the child,
the offspring of man who had so wick
eddy and cruelty outraged her. Besides.
she never had him to herself-never ali
to herself. It was not at all as it had
Leen in her kind parents court-and
that was another grief that had been
driven out by a revolution. Here in
this ancient and naughty court of Bohe-
mia everything was done according to
4-a -s