GOSSIP FROM ABROAD.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 2631, 5 August 1908, Page 5

GOSSIP FROM ABROAD.

> A French countess, her two ' daughters, aged nine: and eleven years, and a nurse visited the ■ little children's orphanage at Montreux. and asked to see tlio'directress; , . The. girl: of , : nino 'excitedly opened the con'.versation.. : :She said, "Madam, .we-.want to ~ take two babies with us to be our dolls.. ,■ We shall, tako great care of them, and treat ' them better -than our own dolls.'.'.. Tlio as--tonished directress (says' the , Geneva ?corres,'pondent: of the .' 'Evening Standard") questioned , the. countess, 1 , who,, smiling, ■• backed her request,' ■ adding ' .that - she wanted tho babies for- a month during their stay, in; Switzerland, ; and. a "qualified nurse, had been engaged to aid her'daughters in taking care oi' the "dolls." -As a handsome sum ,of nionov was also promised for the ' orphanage,' tho directress' agreed, and after references had been given arrangements were made for two of the babies to bo taken away. ■ . •■ Wlien tho P. and 0. boat Mo'oltan called - .at: Colombo some five or six weeks ago (says •< : an English'.paper), a' sprightly French lady, dressed . in. white .• serge; and attended by a small suite;:, came on- board,. and after enjoying every, moment of the voyage" in the best health and/ spirits disembarked at Marseilles.' This was tl.o Empress Eugenie, who, the "Alinanach . do. Gotlia" tells • us, -was born;B2-years ago,:and after a life of many ''changes); trials, and:tribulations, 1 passes her old age . in : much-travel and pleasant intercourse with'old friends and relations. She keeps up no Court in tho strict sense of tho. ' word, but .those- in attendance .who ..have been .faithful to;her for the last '40 years do not let her, or those .who approach her, , forget'.who.. she 'is and was.. .:•■ ;j The Crown Princess Sophie of Greece, who was again -the guest of the Kaiser/on board the Hohenzollern before he left Corfu, was always His Majesty's favourito sister, chiefly, because .she always took' him far more seriously; as a boy and youth than the others did ; and,>, as' Lord Beaconsfield makes ono'of his characters in "Endymion" remark— "An agreeable person is a. person who agrees with you"—a most profound reflection. Consequently, the Emperor, in the, second yeir of his reign, journeyed to Athens:'to attend the wedding of ' his agreeable "sister, and thereafter.'passed ; on to Stamboul to try by the Sultan Abdul Hamid. I•: •'■/