We had supper that night in the open air of the veranda, where Jimmie had engaged the table.  Hedwig, a waitress, whispered into my ear confidentially that we would find the fish delicious, as they were some of those the priests had not needed.

The Tyrol, especially in the vicinity of the Achensee, is absolutely priest-ridden, every one, from the peasants to the gentry, contributing, and the best in the land going into their larders and their coffers.

We were indebted to the overfeeding of these fat priests for a delicacy which was then unknown to me—­broiled goose liver with onions.  It is a German dish, but a rarity not to be had in even all first-class hotels in Germany and Austria.  When you have it, it is announced to the guests personally, with something the same air as if the proprietor should say: 

“Madame, the Emperor and his suite will dine at this hotel to-night, at eight.”

Goose liver may not sound tempting to some, but as I saw it that night, cooked by the old mother of Fraeulein Therese, a luscious white meat delicately browned and smothered in onions as we smother a steak, and so delicate that it melted in the mouth like an aspic jelly, it was one of the most delicious dishes I ever essayed.

As we were eating our dessert, a gemischtes compote so rich that it nearly sent us to our eternal rest, Fraeulein Therese came and asked us to have our coffee in the kitchen.  A long, low-ceiled room, three steps below the level of the ground, with seats against the wall, and a raised platform on each side, with little tables for coffee, adjoined the hotel.  This room at one time perhaps had been a real kitchen, where cooking was done.  Now it was turned into a place of recreation.  Around the walls were seated a variegated, almost motley, array of men and women, from the dear old fat mother of Fraeulein Therese and the three boys, the daughters-in-law, the granddaughters, to a picturesque old man, whose coal-black beard fell almost to his waist, our friend the “shipmaster,” and the band of four musicians, all dressed in the Tyrolese costume, with the exception of the women of the Rhiner family.

Some thirty years ago the father Rhiner, now dead and gone, the mother, whose voice is still a wonder, Fraeulein Therese, and the three boys journeyed to London to sing before the Queen at her jubilee.  This made them famous, and was the beginning of the Fraeulein’s love story, which was told me in London by Lady J., a relative of the duke who so nearly wrecked the Fraeulein’s life.

By telling the Fraeulein that I knew Lady J., I induced her to repeat the story to me.