seignors waited on the prince to tender the proposed honor, he did not evince any lively sense of anticipated pleasure; and after the deputation had bowed themselves off (each one under the delightful delusion that he would be asked in return to drop in at the palace, in a friendly way, on his next visit to Europe) he turned to his mentor and discontentedly said, "Dammit, Grey, must I go to that ball, and be bored by those confounded snobs?" "No help for it that I can see," replied my lord. "Well, there will be lots of pretty girls there, I dare say. These Yankee girls are doosid pretty. If they'd only give me a chance to have my fling, and not insist on my leading out a lot of stupid old dowagers, I wouldn't mind it a bit," remarked H. R. H. Now princeling was to a certain extent justified in his comments, for while the mass of the people had an honest curiosity to see a prince, and rushed to look at him as they would to a unicorn or any other rare sight, there was a select circle who worshipped him as the representative of power and pageantry, and hoped by surrounding him to shine resplendently in the reflected light of royalty. H. R. H. was not an astute lad, but he was probably sharp enough to perceive that all the toadying he was subjected to was due to his rank and trappings and not to him as an individual. That refined snobbery called loyalty has its redeeming side. One can understand the devotion of a good and wise royalist to an imbecile or wretched monarch, because the sentiment may be disinterested, and would still exist were the monarch an exiled mendicant, but the courtiership of republicans is purely selfish and debasing. Most of us, like Thackeray, would jump out of our skins for joy at walking arm-in-arm between two dukes, but it is painful to reflect that we should hardly toss a shilling to either of them the next day if stripped of their titles and reduced to beggary. So Mr. Mumbie, who was abject in the presence of the prince, and ready to prostrate his poor old brown wig in the dust before his royal highness would, in all likelihood, have but grudgingly lent him a dollar had he come in the guise of an impecunious plebeian. But H. R. H. was a good-natured boy and had a part to perform. So he duly attended the ball, was very complaisant, honored several ladies, old enough to be his grandmammas, with his august hand in the dance, and was then allowed to run at large among the younger beauties present. Miss Heath was among those who enjoyed the inestimable privilege of being selected as his partner. Moreover, he graciously flirted with her in the intervals of a galop. He told her that she was a "stunning girl." His Royal Highness had actually said that! Edna thrilled with pleasure. True he had paid the same compliment to the oysters of the country and its cocktails--true he was plain and an awkward dancer, but then he was a prince--a prince of the blood-royal, whatever that might be, and she, Edna Heath, in his