At table I sit between a young officer in uniform and the English lady who is leaving to-morrow and to whose privileges and responsibilities I am to succeed. I learn with horror that with her departure I shall be left to grapple single-handed with whatever difficulties may arise--without any aid or advice excepting that which the “Countess,” who is continually occupied, may find time to fling to me at odd intervals of the day. The German Ober-Gouvernante, whom I had expected to find at my side with counsel and guidance, is in strict quarantine, having been in contact with some infectious illness, and will continue to be possibly contagious for the next ten days. She is being purified and disinfected somewhere with relations, and will resume her duties when the Court returns to the New Palace near Potsdam. In the meantime I shall carry on as well as my ignorance allows the numerous duties of her position as well as my own! Perhaps it is the sympathetic pity of the kind German people in my immediate neighbourhood, their encouragement to be “firm” towards my pupil, the transparent hints that she is a remarkably difficult child to manage, and that only a person of unyielding discipline who will exact rigid and unquestioning obedience can have the least chance of coping with her extraordinary temperament, that make the true inwardness of the situation apparent. “I rather like naughty children,” I murmur wearily, with an effort to throw off the forebodings caused by their remarks; “they have so much more character than good ones. Most people who turn out rather remarkable seem to have been distinguished in their youth for naughtiness.” They all smile indulgently, with the air of humouring the whims of a child whose words are not to be taken seriously. “Grown-up people can often be very annoying too,” I remark, as a further contribution to the discussion. They smile again at each other, and immediately change the subject to something else quite unconnected with education, and, lapsing into German, leave me, so to speak, stranded in a backwater, where I wonder vaguely if I can possibly keep my eyes open much longer and if it will be _lèse-majesté_ if my head suddenly sinks into my dessert plate. Mercifully, when we rise from the table I am dismissed to much-needed repose by the Empress, and bow my way through the door out of the confused blur into which the lights and the people’s faces are beginning to merge.