also was a part of the masquerade. I should never have finished if I were to try to tell of all the amusing scenes that then took place, of some of which I retain a faint recollection, while others are only known to me by hearsay. One of the beautifully illuminated pages of my father’s “Chronicle of Monrepos,” depicts the mock solemnities of the reception awaiting my mother and himself on one of their visits to the castle of Braunfels. The customary bevy of white-robed maidens, deputed to hand my mother a bouquet with an address of welcome, was on this occasion represented by all the elderly gentlemen present in the castle--the Prince’s old bachelor uncles and their friends--who attired themselves in the traditional white muslin frocks and wreaths of roses, and with well-simulated bashfulness recited verses in honour of the visitor. The amateur theatricals too, what delight they gave, and how many diverting incidents sprang from these performances! One of them must find a place here. An aunt of mine, whose height would very well enable her to pass for a man, had agreed to enact a male character in some comedy, and for this she was to wear a suit of my father’s clothes, stipulating, however, that neither he nor any other of the opposite sex were to know of this,--the impersonation was to remain a profound secret to the audience. But unfortunately on the evening in question, as my father sat quietly smoking with a few friends, his valet appeared, and without the slightest circumlocution, bluntly requested “the loan of the brocaded breeches, for Her Serene Highness, Princess Solms!” Inextinguishable laughter broke forth from all present, and I really doubt whether my aunt’s success in the part itself, which she now threw up, would have been as great, or have provoked such hilarity. In nearly all such episodes Weizchen was mixed up. It was to her that one turned, in every emergency, and not merely in our own household, but on both sides of the family, she came to be looked upon as a sort of institution, something belonging to us all, and firmly rooted in the past, but no less indispensable to the present. The Duchess of Oldenburg, my mother’s eldest sister, never came back to the Rhineland without at once sending for Weizchen, in order to revive old memories, and live bygone scenes over again with her, who was herself a piece of family history, the repository of so many a family secret.