Venice! Thee too, marvelously charming, death-pale queen of the lagoons, I learned only in much later years to understand and love. Totally insensible to her beauty I was not, to be sure, even at that time; but yet “the important thing” to me was social life. It did my heart good to be again in the vicinity of my beloved cousin Elvira. Her husband was now stationed at Venice, and the couple were living there quite secluded, but in the profoundest domestic happiness. Only two things disturbed this happiness: first, the young husband’s prospective early return to sea service, which threatened them with a year’s separation, and secondly Elvira’s unsettled health; she coughed much, and was often seized with the fear that she was consumptive. Those who surrounded her, and the physician too, would talk her out of this fear, and then she would once more give herself up to the full gladness of living. I, meanwhile, was reveling in the enjoyment of the Venetian carnival. Venice was at that time an Austrian city, and society life moved in Austrian circles. The houses which we frequented were those of the Austrian governor, the Austrian consul, and sundry Austrian aristocrats. A rich English family named Greaves, adorned by a beautiful daughter, also kept open house, but the Italian families were hostile and held aloof. Our life ran this course: at noon a military band played in the Piazza di San Marco, and there—just as we used to do in the Kurpark at Baden—we promenaded up and down, accompanied by whatever gallants were at hand—mostly navy officers—and continued the conversations of last night’s ball. If it rained, we sat in the cafés under the Procuratie and had our social intercourse there. At five in the afternoon we called on each other, and every evening we met at private balls or soirées. A great fancy-dress ball was given, and once—I think it was in the Wimpffen house—there was an exhibition of amateur theatricals, and living pictures with them. The toilets that I wore on these three occasions I can still see in my memory. I do not intend to describe them, but only to show by this confession what it is that makes so deep an impression on a silly girl’s mind—and, withal, I was not even one of the silliest. They made much of my intellect—they made much of me in every way that season at Venice, so that I felt myself one of their queens. An agreeable feeling, at all events. It went to my head violently, and I took advantage of this agreeable self-sufficiency to send some suitors off with vigorous refusals. This brought upon me worldly-wise reproaches from my people; but how well it is for me that I did this, for otherwise I should be to-day the wife of some admiral or commodore, and should not have possessed that husband whose possession was my life’s consecration, nor should I have come into touch with the peace movement, in which my activities and endeavors have received their most fervid inspiration.