Above the blue salon was an equally spacious bedroom situated at an angle of the palace wing with bull’s-eye windows looking north and east. It was furnished, like most German bedrooms, to serve also as a sitting-room, and contained a sofa, a large centre table, and a big _escritoire_, besides the necessary cupboards and wardrobes. It was heated in winter by one of those tall chocolate-coloured tiled stoves called _Kachel-Ofen_ which are so much used in Germany. In cold weather the _Ofen_ was lit with wood at an early hour of the morning, and was supposed, after consuming a few logs, to have absorbed enough heat for the rest of the day. Though offensive to a sense of beauty, the _Kachel-Ofen_ may generally be trusted to keep the temperature warm at a minimum of expenditure in fuel. “I don’t know why English people always want to _look_ at a fire,” said one German lady, defending the superior economy and effectiveness of the national heating system. “It isn’t the look of a fire that warms you. I never felt the cold so much anywhere as in England. All that beautiful coal warming the chimney, while I sat shivering two yards away from it!” Our life at the Neues Palais is less strenuous than at Homburg. For one thing the _Ober-Gouvernante_ is there, a pale, dark-eyed German in whose hands, although she herself has no teaching to do, lies the chief responsibility of the education of the Princess. Then there is the tutor who gives all the German lessons. He has not been in Homburg, where there was only room to lodge the tutor of Prince Joachim. The day of the Princess begins with breakfast at half-past seven, excepting on Sundays and at holiday times, when she takes it at nine with her parents and brother. Never was there any child who galloped through the first meal of the day with such reckless rapidity. In vain did I inveigh against this habit of bolting food, and dwell on the horrors, the least of which must be an incurable red nose, which invariably lie in wait for those thoughtless persons who ignore the duty of mastication; in vain did I quote Mr. Gladstone’s dictum on the subject, which, though it amused and interested her, in no way led to her betterment. “At fifty, nay at forty--or even sooner, Princess,” I would say, “you will be a hopeless martyr to an outraged internal system. Look at Carlyle, the man who wrote about Frederick the Great. His whole life was made bitter, the happiness of his wife destroyed, his manners and temper spoiled, just because as a little boy----” At this point she usually flung down her knife and fork with a clatter, and, the last mouthful still unconsumed, at her accustomed whirlwind pace, quite unperturbed at what might happen at forty, departed to her mother the Empress, who always liked to see her daughter before lessons began.