built of red tiles are picturesquely situated between the huge blocks of stone of volcanic origin with which the whole country is strewn. These blocks are covered with beech and fir trees. We spent a night in Toncoping, and wandered through the bright wooden town, by the shining Wettersee, at five in the morning.” With the facility peculiar to her, Princess Elizabeth learnt Swedish, and could soon read “Tegner’s Frithjofsage” and the beautiful poems of Runeberg in the original. The Princess of Wied had spent three months in Sweden with her daughter. On the way back they visited Copenhagen and Friedrichsborg, and stayed some days with their relations at Arolsen. There Princess Elizabeth was a peculiar favourite of her cousins of Waldeck, and her appearance at Arolsen gave the signal to endless rejoicings. Princess Elizabeth had scarcely returned to Monrepos with her mother when the Grand Duchess Hélène called her niece to her side at Heidelberg. In November of 1868 she spent three most enjoyable weeks there. The recollections of this time were so deep and lasting that Princess Elizabeth, then Princess of Roumania, mentions it nine years after with such life and freshness as if years and great changes had not come over her meanwhile. We will here give that part of a letter written from Bucharest in May 1877:-- “How beautiful it must now be in Heidelberg! Have I not spent almost the happiest three weeks of my life there with my aunt and so many distinguished people. A gathering of great thinkers, Kirchhoff, Friedreich, Bluntschli, Treitschke, Gervinus, and Helmholtz in one drawing-room! Besides which Joachim with his heavenly violin, and Frau Joachim with her voice like a mountain torrent. An evening for the gods! and then those walks with Fräulein von Rahden, those dreams in the ruins. How they seemed to teem with life and flitting forms, with banquets and fair women. Indeed those were visions worthy of the gods! Of course we were often wet through, but I think the rain belongs to Heidelberg as the dew to flowers. You should read the ‘Trompeter’ together, that suits there, ‘Frau Aventiure,’ and ‘Gaudeamus.’ One must become as jolly as the students, drink wine and lounge, in order to be in the right spirit for Heidelberg: then it is a magic circle, a land of dreams, such as weary wayfarers may long for. You breathe so freely in the warm damp air.”