“Yes,” he assented.  “But aren’t you coming up to the station with me to see the Prince-Regent arrive?  He’s due at seven, you know.”

“I declare I had forgotten all about it.  No, I’m not equal to it.  You must go; you can tell me everything; be sure to notice how the Princess Maria looks; the last of the Stuarts, you know; and some people consider her the rightful Queen of England; and I’ll have the supper ordered, and we can go down as soon as you’ve got back.”

LV.

March felt rather shabby stealing away without Kenby; but he had really had as much of Mrs. Adding as he could stand, for one day, and he was even beginning to get sick of Rose.  Besides, he had not sent back a line for ‘Every Other Week’ yet, and he had made up his mind to write a sketch of the manoeuvres.  To this end he wished to receive an impression of the Prince-Regent’s arrival which should not be blurred or clouded by other interests.  His wife knew the kind of thing he liked to see, and would have helped him out with his observations, but Kenby would have got in the way, and would have clogged the movement of his fancy in assigning the facts to the parts he would like them to play in the sketch.

At least he made some such excuses to himself as he hurried along toward the Kaiserstrasse.  The draught of universal interest in that direction had left the other streets almost deserted, but as he approached the thoroughfare he found all the ways blocked, and the horse-cars, ordinarily so furiously headlong, arrested by the multiple ranks of spectators on the sidewalks.  The avenue leading from the railway station to the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with the stems of young firs and birches.  The doorways were crowded, and the windows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting.  The carriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed one of the crowd to cross it.

The crowd was made up mostly of women and boys, and when March joined them, they had already been waiting an hour for the sight of the princes who were to bless them with a vision of the faery race which kings always are to common men.  He thought the people looked dull, and therefore able to bear the strain of expectation with patience better than a livelier race.  They relieved it by no attempt at joking; here and there a dim smile dawned on a weary face, but it seemed an effect of amiability rather than humor.  There was so little of this, or else it was so well bridled by the solemnity of the occasion, that not a man, woman, or child laughed when a bareheaded maid-servant broke through the lines and ran down between them with a life-size plaster bust of the Emperor William in her arms:  she carried it like an overgrown infant, and in alarm at her conspicuous part she cast frightened looks from side to side without arousing any sort of notice.  Undeterred by her failure, a young