THE INVISIBLE PRINCESS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5445, 28 July 1879, Page 3

THE INVISIBLE PRINCESS.

Of the the youngest daughter of the Royal House nothing has been known by, has scracely a glimpse been permitted to, the great mass of the population" of the kingdom. Her Royal Highness is how juafc twenty-two years of age, having been born on the 14th of April, 1857. Yet, except that she exists, that she is at the present moment said to be sojourning with her Royal mother by the side of an Italian lake, that in a few days' time she will return thence as mysteriously as she departed, who is there, throughout the length and breadth of the 1 md, who can be said to know anything 1 The journey of Princess Beatrice from the capital to the picturesque place of her . present sojourn contains all the elements of enigmatic romance. The deserted dockyards into which she was taken, the empty railway stations where she was compelled to wait, the elaborate precautions that, while she was en route, no common , eye should gaze upon her — theae things wil. long live iv the minds of those who have read the record of that most strange pilgrimage. Of the outer world she can only have such ideas as might be gained oi the humors of the populace by one whc should contemplate a crowd in the atreet from a drawing-room window hermetically sealed in Picadilly. If ever she is beheld in the metropolis, it is only when, half concealed i« the recesses of a carriage, she drives from a palace to a railway terminus. Garden parties, fetes, and balls^— these things know lier not, and. save for the expedition to the romantic lakeland , o;] the frontiers .of an interesting, country, where she still lingers, she has seldom ai never quitted the shadow of the Royal

t * i residences in Mudfog and its northern I dependency. The larger portion of hei '. time is spent at Machaggis Castle, where the" chief occupation' is the piling of stones p on a memorial cairn . and the main iirttiisement consists of endless drives to melancholy lo«ha and waterfalls set in the lnidst of purple heather. Some pastimes, indeed, in this savage region there are. At intervals wild men in uncouth dresa perform grotesque processions by torchlight ;' or Avith many howls and much music full .of hideous dissouances, barbarous retainers celebrate 1 the war-dances of their country , under the. presidency' "of the 1 Macburntumher,' the faVorite vassal of the Queen-mother. The society, i dd t is as uninteresting as the : Career. .It is eminently" t'espeotable, emin'eritly decorous, but it lacks Variety a-ncl it vVarite life'; The la.dies.-in- waiting are all that the nititfonß attached to the Sovereign who is a model of moha'rehs and of Women, ought to be. The equerries; haVe* partly from native strength of . constitution, partlyfrommuchexpei-ien.ee, an^efiormou's power of supporting fatigue on horse'bafrfc, but do.not show many signs of much flexibility, of mind .or the possession of a large store' of mother-wit* Occasionally this; staid circle tee'ei^eS* expansion rather than relief by thd addition to it of a few Teuton ' princes, who prove themselves more stiff and starchy than ever, as if in honor of the event. Is there any sufficient reason why she should be debarred from partici- . patin'g in " the amusements proper to her age, her station, her sex 1 In virtue of what inexorable decree of fate is 1 her young life to' be ono unbr.oken round of solemn, sombre dulness 1 In the nature of things', exile • from the land of her birth, with all the I imui{:era:bly depressing circumstances which follow in its train,' , will come soon enough. The inevitable Teuton Prince will arrive sortie' fine morning, and ifc will be announced that the Grand Duke of Seidlitztinkenhefrn 1 is about to carry off the invisible princess to his residence close to the edge of some Gterman forest, with its toy palace guarded by a terrific army of four soldiers in pickethdubes. Wo one will be unreasonable enough to ask for 1 any' respite from thcit .grim ordeal. It will come in its due place, just as her dusky and divine lover pme for Persephone when she was gathering flowers on the plains of. Bun a. But meanwhile the yeungest Princess in the kingdom of Mudfog is not gathering flowers ; and it would really seem only fair, as well as politic, that she ahe should be permitted a brief interval of natural happiness before the opportunity of it ha 3 gone for over. — Woi'ld.