When Gab was a baby she had as playmates a donkey, a pony and an army of lead soldiers, including Napoleon in his various aspects, with horses, rifles and wooden cannon. When I became acquainted with her she still had with her the nurse who had taken her mother’s place. This woman told me that Gab used to make her play horse while she took the part of Napoleon, until the poor nurse staggered with fatigue. She told me again that Gab was so shy that when her mother received a visitor, if the child were in the drawing-room and there was no way of escape, the little one would hide herself behind a curtain and would not budge until the intruder went away. Her mother was so much concerned with what she called the child’s timidity that she was unwilling to force her in any way. Gab subsequently has explained to me that she was not afraid and was not timid, but the truth was she could not endure certain people and that she did not wish to be obliged to see those who annoyed her. She is just the same to-day. For years whenever a visitor came in by one door she would go out by another, and it made no difference whether the person came for a long call or for only a single word. At lunch or at dinner nothing could, and nothing can, induce Gab to meet people. [Illustration: GAB _Photo_ _Tabler_] Gab has an iron will. Her nurse told me that one day on a journey with her parents Gab, who was then a very small girl, wanted to have a donkey that was running along the railway track. She cried for the donkey and did not cease until they had found the beast and bought it for her. Gab has rarely to be corrected. It seems as if some one had taught her all the politeness in the world, and all the seriousness as well. When nine years old she was reading Schopenhauer. At fourteen she was carrying on special research among the archives of the State police. At sixteen she was studying the literature of ancient India. At eighteen she published a manuscript she had found after her mother’s death. She spent her pocket money to have it published. The title of the book was _Au Loin_, and Jean Lorrain declared that it was the most beautiful book on India which he had ever read. Gab’s mother must have written this book during her journey in India, for a short time before her death she had visited this interesting country, and had gained access to private houses and courts to which Europeans are not ordinarily admitted. She was a marvellously beautiful woman, and made a great sensation in a country in which beauty is held in high regard. The story goes that one evening at a ball in the viceroy’s palace, to which she had been invited, her entrance made such a sensation that all the couples, forgetting that they were there to dance, stopped and came forward to admire her radiant beauty.