My parents came to see the children and make merry because I am basking in the sun of royal grace. Mother has a new maid of honor, as ugly as the Tisch, and when we are _entre nous_ every second word is: "when Louise is Queen." They know to a penny what our inheritance from the King, the Queen and Prince George will amount to and are forever making plans and specifications how to spend the money for the glory of Saxony and of our own family.[6] Mother's scare-crow of a maid of honor had at least sense enough to tell Lucretia of a few scandals that happened at home, which mother never intended for my ears. It seems that papa, some few months ago, suddenly became possessed of the ambition to become an astronomer. Nothing would do, but he must buy a heap of instruments and set them up in a distant tower of Salzburg Castle. And there he spent all his evenings--star-gazing, he gave out. He seldom reached the nuptial couch before one or two in the morning,--utterly exhausted by the night's work. Well, mamma thought he labored too hard, and one forenoon when he had gone hunting, climbed up many stairs to investigate. Imagine her surprise when she found, in the astrolatry, a young lady in the act of getting out of bed, a girl, by the way, whom I used to know. Mamma had the _mauvais genre_ to report the case to Emperor Francis Joseph, while papa sought another climate, remaining away until mother begged him on her bended knees, so to speak, to come home. Nor did she get satisfaction from Vienna. That great moral teacher, the Emperor, told her not to make a scare-crow of herself, but on the contrary make herself pretty and agreeable for, and to, her lord and master. I understand now why mamma says: "All men stick together like gypsies." As a matter of fact father's limited resources are considerably affected by the various alimonies he has to pay to his own mistresses and those of my brothers. The third born of our boys, only a week ago, made too free with the _fiancee_ of the pastry-cook, who threatened to kill him. It cost father several thousand florins to appease the ruffian and Heinrich Ferdinand renewed acquaintance with mother's boxing proclivities. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: The fortune of the present King of Saxony (Louise's ex-husband) amounts to 25 million marks ($6,225,000)--no more than many an American parent paid for his daughter's seedy coronet. It will be remembered that Gladys Vanderbilt and Anna Gould brought to their husbands fifteen million dollars each, and the Castellanes and Szechenys are only nobles of the second class, their ancestors never having possessed ever so small a territory as sovereign lords. The bigger half of the Saxon King's fortune comes from the Brunswick inheritance already mentioned.] CHAPTER XL A PLEBEIAN LOVER