DEAR FRANZ,--When I promised to write, I expected to put a school-girl's
ability at composition to the test, being half afraid that my
description of Berlin and the Court might not pass muster with so severe
a critic as my dear half-brother. But something has happened that makes
living in the shadow of the throne and royal intimacies and reviews and
State balls, even the Grand Council of the Knights of the Black Eagle,
look insignificant.
Listen! Yesterday after luncheon the Crown Prince came to me with a
mysterious air. "Bertha," he said, for he is quite familiar, "you look
like a good, sporty girl; let's fool those fogies, and have a lark all
by ourselves."
You may be sure, Franz, I was frightened, and looked it I suppose, for
he added quickly: "Upon my word as an officer, your Mamma may know about
it." And then he unfolded his plan.
"I am tired to death of the baggage that attends our rides, watching
with as many eyes as a centipede has feet; this afternoon I will lend
you one of my swift English hunters, and I will ride Circe, a devil of a
horse that can outdistance father's Extase any day. Flottwitz--you know
he is Master of Horse--promised to give the others the slowest plugs in
the stables, and we will humour their dog-trot as long as the public
gaze is upon us. But once beyond the dear public's reach, off we are,
rein and spur. Don't be afraid; the grooms, too, will be mounted on
grandmothers; they won't catch us."