CHAPTER VIII. HIRSCH AND KÖNIGSVATER. EVERY one drank the waters at Groschenheim. The whole court turned out; the ladies in mushroom hats and nightcaps; the gentlemen in "civil," as they called mufti; and the Grand Duke in a miscellaneous costume, calculated to inspire the civilized beholder with feelings of mingled horror and bewilderment. The military band played in the Kurgarten; ladies and gentlemen carrying little glass beakers in their hands walked solemnly up and down, with composed countenances. Every one looked important and earnest; they compared notes as to the effect the waters had upon their several maladies, as to which they were, as a rule, by no means reticent ; they counted the number of beakers they had drunk, the number of turns they had taken at the back of the Kursaal, and one heard such phrases as the following: "But I pray you, dear Real-SecretCouncilloress, not to stand—” "Before all things, Mrs. Riding-Foresteress, my physician said to me, before all things, avoid excitement." "I assure you, eight beakers in an hour and a half,-quite unheard of!" "It lies very cold at the pit of the stomach." Strawberries, my most gracious, are certain death. She nearly killed her husband by giving him salad; but, picture to yourself, salad, after the Sprudel!" "Unheard of! but what can you expect of such a foolish creature?" "Ah! my best Melusina, but you are such a Hausfrau!" "You flatter me, dearest Kunigunde, but I pique myself that pudding is really something out of the common." And so on. All this primitive water-drinking took place, however, long before the real "season," long before the shoals of English arrived, and some time before the French toilettes made their appearance on the promenade and in the gambling rooms. It was quite a little family party, undisturbed by strangers. A neighbouring sovereign or two occasionally "made the cure" early in the season, to avoid the rush of foreigners, and these small potentates would then put up at the Golden Eagle. "Good morning, dear cousin," said the Grand Duchess one morning to a thin, pale, nervous-looking gentleman who held his head very high in the air, and had much the appearance of an unfledged bird waiting for its parent to drop the early worm into its beak. "Good morning, dear cousin. Did you hear the firing this morning? I sent out to know whether it was in your dominions or in ours. I find you have a Schützenfest at Winkelberg." The Prince of Saxe-Winkelberg stammered something about encouraging popular institutions, to which the Duchess paid not the slightest attention. Ah, Frau von Tarlreemple, so you too are drinking the waters! I always do it. I believe this to be the real fontaine de jouvence about which Madame de Sevigné is always prating. It keeps one wonderfully young; it restores and refreshes. No one would give me my age, and yet it is no secret. You can see it in the Almanach de Gotha." At this moment Prince Immensikoff came up. VOL. II. L "Ah, good morning, Prince. If Frau von Dalrymple is the substance, what is Prince Immensikoff? I give it you in six. I thought you were at St. Petersburg. I shall call you the Belle Alliance, Russia and England, you know. Your blushes are very becoming, my dear, but I dare not stand. This is my fourth beaker. I shall soon be expecting my crisis. That is a trying moment, but we must be moving, or the consequences may prove fatal.” And, nodding and laughing, the Duchess set off towards the "Brunnen," the borders of her cap vibrating funnily beneath her mushroom hat, as she greeted her friends right and left in the course of her progress. "I have been at St. Petersburg," said Prince Immensikoff, in a low voice to Lesbia. "I only returned late last night." Lesbia made no reply. She carried a |