Oxford Democrat., 1908-04-21

necessarily Il part OF the wonderful
plan concocted in the English garden,
though they were among the details
thought out afterward.
The widow Of the hereditary Grand
Duke of Baumenburg-Drip was re-
ported in the journals of various coun'
tries to be travelling with the Princess
Virginia and small suit through Can
ada and the United States, and. fortu
nately for the success Of the innocent
plot the grand duchess had spent sc
many years of seclusion in England
and had even in her youth met so few
Rhaetians that there was little fear Of
detection. Her objections to Virginia's
scheme for winning lover instead Of
thanking heaven quietly for a mere
husband were based OH other grounds.
but Virginia had overcome them, and
eventually the grand duchess had prov
ed not only docile. but positively fertile
in eXpedient.
The choosing of the borrowed flag
under which to sail had ut first been
difficulty. 1t was pointed out by a
friend taken into their confidence. Il
lady whose husband had been ambas-
sador to Rhaetia, that Il real name
and name of some dignity must be
adopted If proper introductions were
to be given. And it was the grand
duchess who suggested the name OF
Mowbray on the plea that she had IL
way the right to annex it.
The mother of the late Duke oi
Northumberland had been Miss Now
bray, and there were still several emf
nently respectable, inconspicuous Nov.
bray cousins. Among these cousins
was a certain Lady MOwbray, widow
of a baron of that ilk and possessing
daughter some years older and In
Vulnerable degrees palmer than the
Princess Virginia.
To this Lady Mowbray the grand
duchess had gone out of her way to be
kind in Germany long years ago, when
she was Il very grand parsonage in
deed and Lady Mowbray comparative
ly nobody. The humble connection
had expressed herself as unspeakabiy
grateful, and the two had kept up Il
friendship ever since. Therefore wheli
the difficulty of realism in name pre-
sented itself the grand duchess Thought
of Lady Mowbray and Miss Helen
Mowbray. They were about to leave
England for India, but had not ye'
left. and the widow Of the baron was
fiattered as well as amused by the ro'
mantle confidence reposed in her b.!
the widow Of the grand duke. She was
delighted to lend her name and her
daughters name, and who could blame
the lady If her mind rushed forward to
the time when she should have earned
gratitude from the young empress o,
Rhaetia? For Of course she had no
doubt of the way in which the adven
ture would end.
As for the wife of the late Britlsll
ambassador to the Rhaetian court, she
was not sentimental and therefore was
not quite as comfortably sure OF the
SEQUEL. As far as concerned her owl
part in the plot, however, she felt safe
enough, for, though she was after
fashion deceiving her old acquaint'
ances at Kronburg, she was not foist
ing adventuresses upon them. OI
the contrary, she was giving them a
chance of entertaining angels un'
awares by sending them letters to
ladies who were in reality the Grand
Duchess of Baumenburg-Drippe and
the Princess Virginia.
The four mysterious gentlemen left
| Alleheiligen the day after Virginia's
encounter with the ehamols hunter
But the Mowbrays fingered on. The
adventure had begun so gloriously thai
the girl feared an anticlimax for the
next step. Though she longed for the
second meeting, she dreaded 1t as vel
and put off the chance Of 1t from day
to day. The stay Of the Mowbrays al
Alleheiligen heightened into week
and when they left at last 1t was only
Just in time for the great festivities
at Kronburg which were to cele
brate the emperor's thirty-first birth
day, an event enhanced in national
importance by the fact that the eighth