My brother-in-law showed me a most delicate and refined attention. He constituted me the queen of these days of festivity. I was overwhelmed by the homage of his entourage. Each meal was a decorative and culinary marvel. Sybarites would have appreciated the cuisine at the Palace of Sofia. I have always appreciated meals which are meals. It costs no more to eat a good dinner than to eat a bad one; it is a weakness of the body and mind, a crime against the Creator, to disdain food when it is prepared with care. If we have been given the gift of taste, and if good things exist on earth, they are equally for one as for another. Ferdinand at any rate held this epicurean belief. Every night after supper there was a dance at the palace. The Bulgarian officers were most enterprising dancers. Educated at Vienna or Paris, they understood the art of conversation. They were distinguished by an instinctive air of nobility, as are all the sons of a virile and essentially agricultural race with a wholesome and wide outlook. During the day the prince did the honours of his capital and his kingdom. We recalled the memories of the Coburg Palace, and our former excursions and parties. We returned in spirit to that Forest of Elenthal so dear to our youth. We drove, accompanied by an escort which I have never ceased to admire. I am unaware whether the Bulgarian roads have improved, but at the time of which I write they were few, and they were maintained at the expense of Providence. A short distance from the capital they became tracks. But the escort followed without flinching, utterly indifferent to obstacles of every description which encumbered an already too narrow road. I have rarely seen the equal of either man or beast in crossing ridges, walls and ditches. It was witchcraft on horseback. Ferdinand was superbly indifferent to everything unconnected with his sister-in-law. I gazed at him, and I thought of the devil-worship of our youth. He was always strange. I saw now, as I had seen long ago, the amulet in his buttonhole, disguised as a decoration, a button fashioned in the shape of a yellow marguerite beautifully executed in metal of the same shade as that of the heart of the flower. Each time I asked him about this "gri-gri" he assumed a serious manner, and gave me to understand that it was something which he could not discuss. He had earnestly begged us to spend a short time with him. Had he the same idea which he had once explained to me openly at dinner, and which he emphasized privately in another way? I cannot believe it. I think that, carried away by his thoughts, he was no longer master of himself. I do not know whether I was ever mad, as his elder brother so much wished to believe, but I am absolutely sure that Ferdinand of Coburg was not always in possession of his senses.