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294 Had she not subscribed to support the victims of flood and fire out of her "privy purse," as the Courier was precise enough to declare, subscriptions which nearly equalled those of the Grand Duke (did not exceed them, as was noticed with general satisfaction)? Did not the news papers publish almost daily, immediately under the Court news, reports of Mr. Spoelmann's varying health—whether the colic kept him in bed or whether he had resumed his morning visits to the spa-garden? Were not the white liveries of his servants as much a part of the picture in the streets of the capital as the brown of the Grand Ducal lackeys? Did not foreigners with guide-books ask to be taken out to Delphinenort, there to gloat over the sight of Spoelmann's house—many of them before they had seen the Old Schloss?

Were not both Schlosses, the Old and Delphinenort, about equally centres and foci of the city? To what circle of society belonged that human being who had been born Samuel Spoelmann's daughter, that creature without counterpart, without analogy? To whom should she attach herself, with whom have intercourse? Nothing could be less surprising, nothing more obvious and natural than to see Klaus Heinrich at her side. And even those who had never enjoyed that sight enjoyed it in the spirit and gloated over it: the slim, solemnly familiar figure of the Prince by the side of the daughter and heiress of the prodigious little foreigner, who, ill and peevish as he was, disposed of a fortune which amounted to nearly twice as much as our total national debt!

Then one day a memory, a wonderful disposition of words, took hold of the public conscience; nobody can say who first pointed to it, recalled it—that is quite uncertain. Perhaps it was a woman, perhaps a child with credulous eyes, whom somebody was sending to sleep with stories—heaven only knows. But a ghostly form began to show