The cook arrived first in his white cap and apron, looking rather embarrassed at being called upon to perform before royalty. He made a deep bow to Her Majesty, and was then conducted by the young Princes to the garden seat and requested to begin at once, so he flung himself with the ardour of a true musician into a waltz, and they all skipped merrily round upon the grass. Presently a rather fat red-faced footman arrived with a second harmonica, bowed, and took his place beside the cook, and the two went hard at it, the cook playing the air while the footman made the accompanying harmonies. Occasional discords arose, whereupon they regarded each other sternly, each tacitly accusing the other; but it never disturbed the rhythm, and the dancers hopped energetically round in spite of the heat and their hard day’s work. The cook, possessing an artistic soul, always waved his head in time to the music, gazing upwards to the stars; but the fat footman, being a man of another temperament, sat stolidly, moving nothing but his fingers. Bed-time for the children was long passed when the musicians were reluctantly dismissed with the warm thanks of the Empress, and cook and footman retired in a series of graceful bows to their respective spheres. The last day of Cadinen comes. The luggage has been packed and carried downstairs and loaded into carts by a quarter-section of soldiers sent over from Elbing for the purpose. The brown-faced youths penetrate every room, grinning amiably, and shoulder everything they can find, while harassed footmen rush about with lists in their hands, which they consult hurriedly. The train is waiting, the _Land-Rat_ is waiting, the _Inspektor_, the _Zigelei-Direktor_, In the dusk, as we drive down to the station, beyond which glimmers the long line of the Haff, we pass rows of workpeople, who timidly wave hats and aprons as Her Majesty goes by. We are quickly in the train, and stand at the windows, waving our hands vigorously as it moves off. The fields fade away into the distance, the blue cornflowers on the edge of the railway banks nod farewell, a solitary stork can be seen wending his way homewards on wide-sweeping wings. The darkness falls and blots it out. When the dawn comes we are nearing Potsdam once more, and on the whole rather glad to be back again, for, as the Princess says, “Cadinen’s very nice, but ‘there’s no place like home,’ is there?” CHAPTER XIII ROMINTEN Rominten, the Emperor’s favourite shooting domain, lies far away in East Prussia, on the very frontier of the Russian Empire. For the first few years of my life in Germany it existed merely as a name. Every autumn towards the end of November came to the New Palace great loads of antlers labelled “Rominter Heide,” magnificent outspreading trophies of His Majesty’s gun.