‘Very good; I’ll be sure to come,’ she observed at last. ‘But how young you are! How old are you, may I ask?’

‘Sixteen,’ I replied, with an involuntary stammer.

The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through them.

‘A good age,’ she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on her chair. ‘And do you, pray, make yourself at home. I don’t stand on ceremony.’

‘No, indeed,’ I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a disgust I could not restrain.

At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the