world, if she be accidentally left without a maid for twenty-four
hours. It seemed as if everything the Princess possessed in the way of
clothes, necessary and unnecessary, had been torn from wardrobes and
chests of drawers by a cyclone and scattered in every direction, till
there was not space to move or sit down in a room which was thirty
feet square.

Princess Conti was a very stout woman of about the same age as her
visitor, but not resembling her in the least. She had been beautiful,
and still kept the dazzling complexion and magnificent eyes for which
she had been famous. It was her boast that she slept eight hours every
night, without waking, whatever happened, and she always advised
everybody to do the same, with an airy indifference to possibilities
which would have done credit to a doctor.

She was dressed, or rather wrapped, in a magnificent purple velvet
dressing-gown, trimmed with sable, and tied round her ample waist with
a silver cord; her rather scanty grey hair stood out about her head
like a cloud in a high wind; and her plump hands were encased in a
pair of old white gloves, which looked oddly out of place. She was
standing in the middle of the room, and she smiled calmly as the
Baroness entered. On a beautiful inlaid table beside her stood a
battered brass tray with an almost shapeless little brass coffee-pot,
a common earthenware cup, chipped at the edges, and three pieces of
doubtful-looking sugar in a tiny saucer, also of brass. The whole had
evidently been brought from a small cafe near by, which had long been
frequented by the servants from the palace.

Judging from her smile, the Princess seemed to think total ruin rather
an amusing incident. She had always complained that the Romans were