"You know that we, who, so to speak, are born in the purple, have moments in our lives in which we are conscious that title and honours are--what shall I say?--mere fripperies. One longs, now and then, to step down from the pedestal on which chance, rather than our desert, has placed us, and become--what shall I say again?--one of the masses. I don't know how it may be with others in my position, but it is often so with me. And to such an extent, that at one time I even thought of coming to Beachington as plain Mrs Dowsett. I thought it would be such fun, so obviously ridiculous, you know. I even had cards printed with the name of Dowsett on them. Wasn't it a curious fancy? I suppose one of them got mixed up with my own cards, and, in my silly way, I left it at your house by mistake." She paused, then she added: "My husband's name was Dowsett. He was an American of the finest kind. He was what they call in America, One of the Four Hundred." "Then, if your husband's name was Dowsett, I presume that your name is Dowsett, too. So that you are Mrs Dowsett after all." "My dear Admiral! Once a Princess always a Princess. I do not cease to be the Princess Margaretta because, by accident, I chance to have had a husband who was a commoner." She said this in a way which showed that I had wounded her sensibilities. Then I tried to bring the subject round to young Charles Marchmont. I got there by degrees. She caught up the hints I dropped with a quickness which confounded me. "Poor Mr Marchmont! He is so utterly in love with me!" "In love with you--Charles Marchmont!" I stared. I almost let out that the young scoundrel was, nominally, engaged to Daisy--my little girl. But I did not choose to give my child away even to the Princess Margaretta. "He has given me a hundred pounds." I almost sprang from the carriage seat. "Charles Marchmont has given you a hundred pounds!" "I have not told him so, but I have almost made up my mind to devote it to the Russian Jews. It makes one so sad to think of them--don't you think that it makes one sad? All the world knows how deeply I am interested in the sufferings of my unfortunate compatriots. Because they are Hebrews, is that a reason why we should give them stones instead of bread? Oh, no! Are they not my fellow-creatures? But every one in Beachington has made my sympathies his own. It is beautiful!" The lovely creature wiped her lovely eyes. "Every one has showered gifts upon me--gifts of money and of money's worth. Even Mr Rouse has given me five pounds and a ring which was his mother's." Poor Rouse! I doubt if he had any private means to speak of, and I know that the income from his curacy was only sixty pounds a year.