IF there is any position difficult to fill it is assuredly that of a young princess just entering her capital as a stranger to both people and country. Here the crowds seemed to regard me with cold curiosity, while only a few days before my own people had surged around me and gazed into my face with eyes filled with tears, and lips trembling with emotion, in spite of the "Hurras," and cries of "May God's richest blessings be yours, our dear child, our little princess!" Hardly more than a child in years, I was surprised and dumbfounded at the idea of being really married, sensitive and fearful of displeasing, and positive of my own inefficiency to bear the burden which had been laid on my shoulders with the royal mantle.
     But I took with me one never-failing consolation—my pen. To be regarded as a poetess would have surprised me as much as to be called a magician. Can the soul of one's soul be given a name?
     During my journey down "Schöne Blaue Donau" the beauty of the scenery and surroundings gradually increased the nearer I approached my new home, like the grand finale of some symphony, until it seemed as though I were passing through fairyland. From the turquoise blue of the cloudless sky, tinged with bur­nished gold as the sun sank to rest beyond the distant mountains, to the deep green of the pastureland, beside the picturesque villages nestled among the flower covered hills, my eyes fairly reveled in the gorgeous colors of the scene. The peasantry, in their national dress of rich colors and graceful drapery, only tended to complete the entrancing beauty of the whole. So, I entered Roumania, my future home.
     The country people who gathered to greet me wore white clothes, embroidered in red, black, or gold; the women had floating veils of white linen, or yellow silk, and red petticoats. The men rode on their stocky little ponies, with gay cloaks floating in the wind, their broad girdles containing