Between Maria Leopoldina and Alexandra there was no love lost, but there was a golden and bejewelled truce. Alexandra, even at sixteen--at which age both girls attended court functions, although tutors and governesses were in attendance for two years longer, under the general supervision of the Obersthofmeisterin--was too wise in the ways of royalty openly to defy this valuable woman, who rejoiced in the absolute approval of the Emperor and his ministers; and the Obersthofmeisterin, who often longed to shake her and pack her off to America, dared not, in this one particular, brave the wrath of her princess. During the first two years of her reign, however, they were more than once perilously close to open war, and a fatal rupture might have been precipitated by the more impulsive Alexandra had not Mrs. Abbott arrived in Vienna for her step-daughter’s eighteenth birthday, and during a moment of extreme tension. Grasping the situation and its dangers, Mrs. Abbott admonished Alexandra severely, and made her present the duenna with a magnificent set of diamond stars--given out of the fulness of her heart on this the most sentimental of birthdays. The present was peculiarly welcome to Maria Leopoldina, who, herself the youngest of her family, having married in her uncalculating youth a junior member of an impoverished house, was sadly deficient in that jewelled panoply which diverts the eye from the shabby gowns of so many of Austria’s noble dames. Moreover, this concrete illustration of the vast wealth of the American girl inspired respect, if not awe, and these sentiments were nourished at decent intervals by other offerings of increasing magnificence. As time went on, Alexandra, too, imbibed the great lesson of self-restraint, and developed a high impersonal way of looking out upon life; she ceased to irritate the Hapsburg, and admitted her own debt as well as that of her friend. Nevertheless, she had no love for Maria Leopoldina, and was alive to all her foibles. To Ranata’s remark she replied, assuming a severe and elderly demeanor, elevating her head until the roundness left her throat, from which her voice issued with a scraping sound: “Will your Imperial Highness kindly remember to-night that the Princess Cockolorum is only entitled to one minute of your august notice, as it is necessary to remind her that her manner in public with Lieutenant von Poodle is unbecoming in a member of the Austrian court, which has dignity if not morals? And will your Imperial Highness exert yourself to remember that the wife of the American ambassador, although no doubt charming, is still an American? It is not necessary to inquire after her entire family. And--my dear child, your hair looks like a rat’s nest! I shall dismiss that coiffeur to-morrow!”