I do not attempt to put a good face on this fact. It is an ugly fact when an eighteen-year-old girl is willing to give her hand to an unloved man so much older than herself, just because he is a millionaire! to call it by its right name, it is selling herself. If I were writing a novel I should certainly not tell such a story of its heroine, if she was intended to be attractive; but what I am setting down here is the experiences of a real person, for whose actions I am not by a long way so responsible as I should be for those of a figure drawn from fancy. For the latter would be fashioned according to my own present views and feelings, while this eighteen-year-old Bertha Kinsky—though it is I myself—is nothing more than a vague picture in memory. What the original of the picture experienced is retained in bare outlines in my recollection; it has also contributed to the shaping of my present character; but what sort of character that original itself had at that time appears to me as a thing in which I have as little part as in the caprices of Cleopatra or Semiramis. A few pictures from this engagement episode: The presentation: Herr von Weilen brings the suitor for a morning call. Stiff conversation in the drawing-room. Each studies the other. Pleased? No, the elderly gentleman scarcely pleases me—but does not displease me. Invitation to dinner the next day; Fürstenberg also there. Still stiff. On the fourth or fifth day a letter to my mother asking for my hand. I hesitate. That same evening we were to go to a ball—my coming out. An aristocratic picnic: the _crème_ used to appear at this ball, but not exclusively—elements of less consequence are also present. I can still see my toilet, a white dress sprinkled all over with little rosebuds. Full of joyous anticipation I entered the hall. Full of piqued disappointment I left it. I had found but few partners; I should have been left to sit out the cotillion had not a homely infantry officer, who had had his matrimonial proposals rejected in numerous quarters, taken pity on me. The aristocratic mothers sat together, my mother sat alone; the countesses stood in groups and chattered, I knew none of them; at the supper merry little coteries were formed, I was left out. On the way home I said to my mother, “Mamma, I have made up my mind now, I will accept the proposal.” The next picture: The happy suitor, in possession of my acceptance, brings me a whole cargo of betrothal presents: a set of sapphires and a pearl necklace. He also presents to me his nearly sixteen-year-old daughter (for he was a widower), and she calls me her dear, beautiful mamma, which is great fun for me.