"Did--did Sir Max come with you?"

I looked at her in surprise, and glanced inquiringly toward the duchess.

"My mother knows all, Sir Karl," said the princess, reassuringly. "There
have been many things which I could not have done without her help. I
have made many rapid changes, Sir Karl, from a princess to a burgher
girl, and back again, and I should have failed without my mother's help.
I surely mystified you often before you knew of the stairway in the
wall. Indeed, I have often hurried breathless to Uncle Castleman's house
to deceive you. Mother invented a burgher girl's costume that I used to
wear as an under-bodice and petticoat, so, you see, I have been visiting
you in my petticoats. I will show you some fine day--perhaps. I have but
to unfasten a half-score of hooks, and off drops the princess--I am
Yolanda! I throw a skirt over my head, fasten the hooks of a bodice, don
my head-dress, and behold! the princess once more. Only a moment
intervenes between happiness and wretchedness. But tell me, Sir Karl,
have you ever told Sir Max who I am?"

"Never, Your Highness--"

"Yolanda," she interrupted, correcting me smilingly.

"Never, Yolanda," I responded. "He does not even suspect that you are
the princess. I shall be true to you. You know what you are doing."

"Indeed I do, Sir Karl," she replied. "I shall win or lose now in a
short time and in short skirts. If Max will wed me as Yolanda, I shall
be the happiest girl on earth. If not, I shall be the most wretched. If