Throughout those mirthful days, in their maddest pranks and most reckless fun, it was always to Weizchen that the young folk turned for help to carry out their most extravagant devices. They knew they might count on her to aid and abet them in every harmless plot, indeed her own inventive genius sometimes furnished invaluable hints, as in the memorable birthday reception prepared by my mother for Uncle Maurice, in retaliation for a practical joke he had played on her a short time before. Remembering his sister’s fondness for the Nassau bonbons, a sweetmeat her father’s cooks excelled in preparing, the young man had sent her a magnificent box of these, which she handed round with delight to her guests one evening, only discovering by the wry faces or half-smothered ejaculations of disgust of those who partook of the confectionery, that the interior of these well-sugared delicacies by no means corresponded with their tempting outside! It was to punish him for this sorry trick--a little too much resembling, it must be owned, the “merrie jestes” with which Louis XI is credited--that my mother planned the following revenge. During the gala dinner being given in my uncle’s honour, a servant suddenly made the announcement that the three Graces begged for a moment’s audience, to present their congratulations to the Prince. Amused and smiling the young man left his seat and advanced to the door, where he was met by a trio, resembling the Three Furies, or the witches in “Macbeth”--anything rather than the vision of feminine loveliness to have been expected. Three of the most gaunt and ill-favoured washerwomen of the district had been selected by the malicious Weizchen, crowned with roses, and clad in snow-white draperies, through which their bony necks and red arms looked only the more frightful, and primed with champagne in order that they might enact their part with the greater zest, they surrounded their victim, whose short-sight prevented him from seeing them distinctly until at quite close quarters. Poor Maurice, whose susceptibility to female charms was only equalled by his aversion for every form of ugliness, promptly turned and fled; but the ladies, nothing daunted, pursued and again drew him into their midst, executing a wild bacchanalian dance while they tried to imprison and bind fast the fugitive with the long green garlands they carried. At last, breaking away from his tormentors, and jumping over chairs and tables which he upset in his flight, the young man sank, breathless and exhausted, behind a sofa in one corner of the room, whilst at a sign from my mother, the Mænads vanished. The hero of the adventure only came forth from his hiding-place, when a few minutes later Weizchen entered the room, to ask my mother demurely if she were content with the way her orders had been executed. Then, springing to his feet, he seized Weizchen round the waist, and kissed her so heartily, that all present who were not in the secret believed that this