When Alexandra was twelve years old Mrs. Abbott had taken her to Vienna to consult a famous surgeon for a threatened deformity. He had commanded that the child be left under his care for at least five years, and Mrs. Abbott, whose devotion to her husband amounted to a mannerism, left her with an old friend, a Hungarian, whose infinite quarterings made her one of that small band so closely allied with the court that they have never learned to snub, since nobody has ever dared to take a liberty with them. This lady, who had married one of the Princes Windischgrätz had formed a friendship with Mrs. Abbott in her impulsive youth when the American’s father had been minister to Austria, renewing it when she returned as the wife of a secretary of Legation. The young husband had died in Vienna, and the Princess had shown a sincere and spontaneous sympathy which cemented their friendship into an intimacy where each might dare to accept a favor from the other. She also extravagantly admired the American’s toilettes, having a natural and exquisite taste, and rebelling at the frequent necessity to wear an old gown, soiled and frayed, perhaps, under her load of family jewels. After her friend married the chieftain of millions, she visited her in New York and Newport, and was deeply impressed with a style of living far more comfortable and luxurious than anything in Europe, and quite as magnificent. Immobile to a world whose existence she barely admitted, with her own class she was simple and natural; and Mrs. Abbott having acquired the same tactics in an early experience of European courts, there was no marked external difference between these two exalted dames, and much in common. The friendship never waned, for Mrs. Abbott was frequently in Europe, and was the first American to dress in Vienna; when, therefore, she was for once in a way confronted with a serious problem, the Princess came gallantly to the rescue, and Alexandra for three years lived in a palace immense and chilly, but as full of old furniture and pictures as a museum, and often of gay Hungarian relatives who played high and slept late. The “Princess Sarolta,” as she was known to the elect, was a woman of much heart and cynicism, of strong loves and stronger hates. Without children of her own, one of the deepest affections of her life had been for the Archduke Rudolf. Her pet aversion had been the Empress, whom she denounced as a mixture of the country girl and the mystic, wholly unfit to wear a crown. She never forgave her for being, not von Bayern, but in Bayern; and when, in addition to the comparative insignificance of her birth, the sweet and gentle but shy and unhappy Empress treated a throne with contumely and sought the consolations of the inner life, the Princess became her most contemptuous enemy.