The Princess Virginia

								

had been that, and had selected her to help him reign over the
Hereditary Grand Duchy of Baumenburg-Drippe, not only because her
father was an English Duke with Royal Stuart blood in his veins,
but because her Virginian mother had brought much gold to the
Northmoreland exchequer. Afterwards, he had freely spent such portion
of that gold as had come to his coffers, in trying to keep his little
estates intact; but now it was all gone, and long ago he had died of
grief and bitter disappointment; the Hereditary Grand Duchy of
Baumenburg-Drippe was ruled by a cousinly understudy of the German
Emperor William the Second; the one son of the marriage had been
adopted, as heir to his crown, by the childless King of Hungaria; the
handsome and lamentably extravagant old Duke of Northmoreland was
dead; his title and vast estates had passed to a distant and
disagreeable relative; and the widowed Grand Duchess, with her one
fair daughter, had lived for years in a pretty old house with a
high-walled garden, at Hampton Court, lent by the generosity of the
King and Queen of England.
For a long moment the Dresden china lady thought in silence and
something of sadness. Then she roused herself again and asked the one
and only Royal Princess with an American name what, in the way of a
match, she really expected.
"What do I expect?" echoed Virginia. "Why, I wish for the Moon--no,
I mean the Sun. But I don't expect to get it."
"Is that a way of saying you never intend to marry?"
"I'm afraid it amounts to that," admitted Virginia, "since there is
only one man in the world I would have for my husband."
"My dearest! A man you have let yourself learn to care for? A man
beneath you? How terrible! But you see no one. I--"
"I've never seen this man. And--I'm not 'in love' with him; that would
be too foolish. Because, instead of being beneath, he's far, far above
me."
"Virginia! Of whom can you be talking? Or is this another joke?"
Virginia blushed a little, and instead of answering her mother's look
of helpless appeal, stared at the row of tall hollyhocks that blazed
along the ivy-hidden garden wall. She did not speak for an instant,
and then she said with the dainty shyness of a child pinned to a
statement by uncomprehending elders, "It isn't a joke. Nonsense,
maybe--yet not a joke. I've always thought of him--for so many years
I've forgotten when it first began. He's so great, so--everything that
appeals to me; how could I help thinking about him, and putting him on
a pedestal? I--there's no idea of marriage in my mind, of course.
Only--there's no other man possible, after all the thoughts I've given
him. No other man in the world."
"My dear, you must tell me his name."
"What, when I've described him--almost--do you still need to hear his
name? Well then, I--I'm not ashamed to tell. It's 'Leopold.'"
"Leopold! You're talking of the Emperor of Rhaetia."
"As if it could have been any one else."