The Prince was known to the outside world, if at all,
as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating modern progress, as it
were, with a wooden sword; to his own people he was known as a
kindly old gentleman with a certain endearing stateliness which
had nothing of standoffishness about it. Knobaltheim was anxious
to do its best. Lady Barbara discussed the matter with Lester and
one or two acquaintances in her little hotel, but ideas were
difficult to come by.
"Might I suggest something to the Gn?dige Frau?" asked a sallow
high-cheek-boned lady to whom the Englishwoman had spoken once or
twice, and whom she had set down in her mind as probably a
Southern Slav.
"Might I suggest something for the Reception Fest?" she went on,
with a certain shy eagerness. "Our little child here, our baby,
we will dress him in little white coat, with small wings, as an
Easter angel, and he will carry a large white Easter egg, and
inside shall be a basket of plover eggs, of which the Prince is so
fond, and he shall give it to his Highness as Easter offering. It
is so pretty an idea we have seen it done once in Styria."
Lady Barbara looked dubiously at the proposed Easter angel, a
fair, wooden-faced child of about four years old.
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