I would just like
to see Howells get down to his work & explain & lie & work his
futile & inventionless subterfuges when that Princess comes raging
in here & wanting to know."
But Livy could not hear fun--it was not a time to be trying to be
funny. We were in a most miserable & shameful situation, & it
--Just then the door spread wide & our Princess & 4 more & 3 little
Princes flowed in! Our Princess & her sister, the Archduchess Maria
Theresa (mother to the imperial heir & to the a young girl
Archduchesses present, & aunt to the 3 little Princes), & we shook
hands all around & sat down & had a most sociable time for half an
hour, & by & by it turned out that we were the right ones & had been
sent for by a messenger who started too late to catch us at the
hotel. We were invited for a o'clock, but we beat that arrangement
by an hour & a half.
Wasn't it a rattling good comedy situation? Seems a kind of pity we
were the right ones. It would have been such nuts to see the right
ones come and get fired out, & we chatting along comfortably &
nobody suspecting us for impostors.
Mrs. Clemens to Mrs. Crane:
Of course I know that I should have courtesied to her Imperial
Majesty & not quite so deep to her Royal Highness, and that Mr.
Clemens should have kissed their hands; but it was all so unexpected
that I had no time to prepare, and if I had had I should not have
been there; I only went in to help Mr.
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