The restoration of the Princess Hildegarde of Ehrenstein had been the sensation of Europe, as had been in the earlier days her remarkable abduction.  For sixteen years the search had gone on fruitlessly.  The cleverest adventuresses on the continent tried devious tricks to palm themselves off as the lost princess.  From France they had come, from Prussia, Italy, Austria, Russia and England.  But the duke and the chancellor held the secret, unknown to any one else—­a locket.  In a garret in Dresden the agents of Herbeck found her, a singer in the chorus of the opera.  The newspapers and illustrated weeklies raged about her for a while, elaborated the story of her struggles, the mysterious remittances which had, from time to time, saved her from direst poverty, her ambition, her education which, by dint of hard work, she had acquired.  It was all very puzzling and interesting and romantic.  For what purpose had she been stolen, and by whom?  The duke accused Franz of Jugendheit, but he did so privately.  Search as they would, the duke and the chancellor never traced the source of the remittances.  The duke held stubbornly that the sender of these benefactions was moved by the impulse of a guilty conscience, and that this guilty conscience was in Jugendheit.  But these remittances, argued Herbeck, came long after the death of the old king.  He had his agents, vowed the duke.  Herbeck would not listen to this.  He preferred to believe that Count von Arnsberg was the man.

There was an endless tangle of red tape before the girl became secure in her rights.  But finally, when William of Prussia and Franz Josef of Austria congratulated the duke, everybody else fell into line, and every troop in the duchy came to Dreiberg to the celebration.  Then the world ran away in pursuit of other adventures, and forgot all about her serene highness.

And was she happy with all this grandeur, with all these lackeys and attentions and environs?  Who can say?  Sometimes she longed for the freedom and lack-care of her Dresden garret, her musician friends, the studios, the crash and glitter of the opera.  To be suddenly deprived of the fruits of ambition, to reach such a pinnacle without striving, to be no longer independent, somehow it was all tasteless with the going of the novelty.

She looked like a princess, she moved and acted like one, but after the manner of kindly fairy princesses in story-books.  All fell in love with her, from the groom who saddled her horse, to the chancellor, who up to this time was known never to have loved anything but the state.

She was lovely enough to inspire fervor and homage and love in all masculine minds.  She was witty and talented.  Carmichael said she was one of the most beautiful women in Europe.  Later he modified this statement by declaring that she was the most beautiful woman in Europe or elsewhere.  Yet, often she went about as one in a waking dream.  There was an aloofness which was not born of hauteur but rather of a lingering doubt of herself.