The Princess told many interesting facts about Belle Vue. Among other things, when I was admiring the blue satin curtains in one room and remarking on their newness, she said, “Yes, of course; that was because of the Shah of Persia.” “Why?” I inquired, wondering what the Shah had to do with curtains in Belle Vue. “Oh, don’t you know? He and his suite stayed here once, and they used to kill sheep in this room, and wiped their hands on the blue satin curtains; and they had to be replaced, of course!” She said further that the old “Shah,” the one who threw chicken-bones and asparagus-ends over his shoulder to the servants standing behind, tried to imitate European manners and eat with a fork instead of his fingers, but being unaccustomed to the implement, compromised on Persian and European methods by picking up the meat with his fingers, sticking it on the fork, and thus conveying it to his mouth. “When Great-Grandmamma Augusta once offered him a dish of strawberries, instead of taking a few on to his plate, he just ate them from the dish while she held it. Fancy! Great-Grandmamma Augusta--who was so particular! Everybody nearly had a fit!” An intense interest in human nature was one of the traits which the Princess shared with her father, the Emperor. She liked, if possible, to merge herself in the crowd, to watch people going about their daily affairs, to see young people making love, old people cooking or reading the papers. She had a healthy, vital curiosity; knew all about the brothers of the _Stifts-Kinder_, and to whom they were, or were likely to be, engaged. One particular friend among the boarders at the _Stift_--not one of those who came daily, but another who was frequently invited to the Palace, a very nice American girl called Yvette Borup--had a brother who accompanied Peary on his expedition to the North Pole. After coming safely through all the dangers and hardships of the Polar expedition, this brother a year or two later was unfortunately drowned in America while boating; but at the time of which I write he was absent with Peary, and there were few days when the Princess did not wonder “where Yvette’s brother had got to now.” In the daily afternoon walks in the neighbourhood of Potsdam, after Prince Joachim had gone to Ploen and there was consequently no governor or tutor to accompany the Princess and her lady, a private detective was detailed to dog her footsteps, for there were many undesirable characters about and Her Majesty insisted that we should have some kind of escort.