Cadinen is about ten miles from Elbing, which is reached from there by a train which puffs leisurely up and down the single branch line at long intervals of the day. The station platform at this little village, when I first knew it, was practically non-existent. One descended from the blue-and-gold royal train right on to the meadow. Great purple columbines, yellow and blue lupines, seemed to be almost growing over the line itself. No road was visible excepting a sandy cart-track, full of ruts, where three or four of the royal carriages, looking entirely out of place, were waiting to take us up to the Schloss. One felt that a farm-cart drawn by a yoke of oxen would have been more appropriate. We bumped towards the Schloss, the coachman wisely eschewing the track and driving over the meadow itself, past a _Zigelei_ (tile-factory) belonging to the Emperor, and up a shady lane of ancient and weathered oaks, till we came to one of those stucco, villa-like country-houses usual in the Fatherland, which makes it easy to understand why the Germans fall into raptures over ours in England. It stood, with a small interval of untidy lawn, close to the road and opposite the village green and duck-pond, around which other houses were clustered. At the back was what is called a park in Germany, but the term has no relation to the English idea of a park, and means simply an extensive garden and orchard. A lovely avenue of chestnut trees was the chief beauty of the garden. They unfortunately grew close up to the house, and made some of the bedrooms so dark that on dull days one could not read or write without a lamp on the writing-table, which was very inconvenient, especially as our rooms had to serve as combined sitting-and bed-rooms. The Empress and the Princess had with them all their servants, including housemaids, from the New Palace, but peasant-women of the neighbourhood waited upon the suite--clean, strong, healthy-looking people who usually worked barefoot in the fields for a wage of threepence or fourpence a day, but at the advent of the court were thrust into print gowns and boots, and, wearing little flat caps on their heads, pervaded the house, smiling broadly. They spoke with an engaging West-Prussian accent, and only came for an hour or two in the mornings, and again in the afternoons for another short spell of work. In the intervals they went back to their occupations in the fields, for the _Inspektor_ did not approve of their absence just at the busy harvest time. They were all of them Catholics, for the Reformation never penetrated to that district, and among them is much Polish blood.