Viennese Medley By Edith O'Shaughnessy Author of "A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico," "Diplomatic Days," "Alsace in Rust and Gold," etc. "'S giebt nur a Kaiserstadt, 'S giebt nur a Wien." (There's only one right royal town, There's only one Vienna.) _New York_ _B. W. Huebsch, Inc._ _Mcmxxiv_ COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN U. S. A. To COUNTESS MITON SZÉCHÉNYI and COUNTESS GLADYS SZÉCHÉNYI FRIENDS OF THEN AND NOW CONTENTS I _Their Aunt Ilde_ II _Liesel and Otto_ III _Anna and Pauli_ IV _Hermann and Mizzi_ V _The Eberhardts_ VI _Corinne_ VII _Fanny_ I THEIR AUNT ILDE _Adagio assai._ "Sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier days." War and Peace had stripped Frau Ildefonse Stacher, born von Berg, of everything except her physical being, leaving her quite naked in another but certainly not better world. As the widow of a Viennese Kommerzienrath, dead after thirty years of service in the Finance Ministry, she had enjoyed a comfortable pension. She had been considered rich herself at the time of her marriage for she had had as dowry some shares in a beet-root industry in Bohemia, but when the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia was formed she found herself mysteriously and without appeal separated from those shares, which had been as much a part of her life as her hands and feet, and the separation though swift was to prove fatal, at least to her use and dignity. During the long, pleasant years of her widowhood she had had a little house at Baden near Vienna, where her only brother, an official in the Northern Railways, and his various wives and many children had been in the habit of spending holidays and convalescences. If any child were ailing it was promptly sent to Tante Ilde, who could always be counted on to receive such gages of affection with open arms.