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20 Featherly would have been to know that she and I had been follow-travelers for so long.

I was very kindly received at the hotel—it was really no more than an inn—kept by a fat old lady and her two daughters. They were good, quiet people, and seemed very little interested in the great doings at Strelsau. The old lady's hero was the duke, for he was now, under the late king's will, master of the Zenda estates and of the castle, which rose grandly on its steep hill at the end of the valley, a mile or so from the inn. The old lady, indeed, did not hesitate to express her regret that the duke was not on the throne instead of his brother.

"We know Duke Michael," said she. "He has always lived among us; every Ruritanian knows Duke Michael. But the king is almost a stranger; he has been so much abroad not one in ten knows him even by sight."

"And now," chimed in one of the young women, "they say he has shaved off his beard, so that no one at all knows him."

"Shaved his beard!" exclaimed her mother. "Who says so?"