Tea was always served after the performance in the flower-bedecked room behind the box, where the _Herr Cirkus-Direktor_ appeared in his dress suit to receive the thanks and congratulations of the Princess, who asked interested questions about the performing horses and told him how beautifully her own little Arab mare could do the “Spanish trot.” She enjoyed these circus performances and the sawdust and smells, and the faces of the good Berliners turned as one man towards the royal box in the intervals. Then there was the return to the station through the big Sunday crowd along the Linden, where the people stood patiently waiting to see the carriages pass, waving pocket-handkerchiefs and bowing, and shouting “_Hoch lebe die kleine Prinzessin_,” and wearing those expansive smiles, all of the same width and pattern, to which one soon grew accustomed as part of the Sunday performance. And if it was not the circus then it was the theatre--_Wilhelm Tell_ or _Wallenstein_, or sometimes on special occasions even the Opera. It is not known at what age the Princess was first introduced to Opera, but it must have been at a very early one. She was quite an old _habituée_ when I first knew her. When Beerbohm Tree came with his company to Berlin for a week or ten days, to show the Germans something about stage-management, the Empress wished the Princess to see the English actor, but feared there was nothing very suitable in his _répertoire_. However, after carefully re-reading _Richard II_ she decided that it was a very suitable play for stimulating historical interest, and the Princess, to her joy, accompanied Their Majesties. She was delighted with Miss Viola Tree, who, as the Queen, came riding on to the stage on a gallant white horse in gorgeous trappings--one that belonged to the royal stables and had often eaten sugar from the Princess’s hand. She saw Beerbohm Tree as Richard II dying in his dungeon, and was able next day to reproduce exactly his words, his gestures, even the peculiar characteristic tones of his voice, for she had great gifts of mimicry, and her talent ranged from the imitation of the antics of “Sally,” the pet chimpanzee of the Berlin “Zoo,” to the dignified gestures of a Julius Cæsar. Beerbohm Tree’s stay in Berlin must have been fraught to him with peculiar anxiety, for on the Sunday (when he gave two performances) all his German scene-shifters deserted him to go to the funeral of a notable Socialist, and he was left to grapple as he could with the situation. There were terribly long waits between the scenes of _Antony and Cleopatra_, at which Their Majesties were present, and once the curtain went up prematurely, revealing British stage-carpenters among the splendours of ancient Egypt.