My Friend Prospero

  V

  Maria Dolores tripped into Frau Brandt's sitting-room, merrily singing asnatch of song.

  "_Gardez vous d'etre severe Quand on vous park d'amour_,"

  she carolled. Then she stopped singing, and blithely laughed.

  Frau Brandt raised her good brown face from her knitting, and her goodbrown eyes looked anxiously upwards, slantwise over hertortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.

  "What is the matter now?" she asked. "What has happened to vex you now?"

  "To vex me!" cried Maria Dolores, in apparent astonishment. "Wasn't Isinging aloud from sheer exuberance of high spirits?"

  "No," said Frau Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-cappedhead. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What hashappened?"

  "Ah, well, then, if you know so much and must know all," said MariaDolores, "I've just proposed to the man I'm in love with, and been sentabout my business."

  "What do you mean?" asked Frau Brandt, phlegmatic. "What nonsense isthis?"

  "I mean my cobbler's son," Maria Dolores answered. "I, a Princess of theEmpire, humbly offered him, a cobbler's son, my hand, heart, andfortune,--and the graceless man rejected them with scorn."

  "That is a likely story," said Frau Brandt, wagging her chin. Her bluntbrown fingers returned to their occupation. "I see your Serene Highnessoffering her hand."

  "At all events, will you kindly tell Josephine to pack our boxes.To-morrow we'll be flitting," her Serene Highness in a casual wayannounced.

  "What say you?" cried Frau Brandt, dropping her knitting into her lap.

  "Yes--to Mischenau, to my brother," the Princess pursued. "Of courseyou'll have to come with us, poor dear. You can't let me travel alonewith Josephine."

  "No," said Frau Brandt. "I will go with you."

  "And you can remain for my wedding," Maria Dolores added. "I am goinghome to meet my brother's wishes, and to marry my second cousin, thehigh and mighty Maximilian, Prince of Zelt-Zelt."

  "Herr Gott!" said Frau Brandt, glancing with devotion at the ceiling.