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sorts of strange things to happen when you reach Dórsia.”
    “It seems strange for you to be warning me,” Zosina protested.
    “Not really. You see, darling Zosina, you are so terribly impractical. You are always far away in your dream world and you expect real people to be like those you read about and like you are yourself.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Zosina asked.
    “I have looked at the sort of books you read. They are all about fantasy people, who just like you, are kind, good and courageous and searching for spiritual enlightenment. The people we meet are not like that”
    Zosina looked at her young sister in astonishment and asked,
    “Why do you say that about me?”
    Katalin laughed.
    “As a matter of fact I did not think all that up about you, although it’s true. It was what I heard Frau Weber say when she was talking to Papa’s secretary.”
    “Frau Weber!” Zosina exclaimed.
    Now she understood where Katalin got her ideas, because that particular Governess had been very different from all the rest.
    A lady who had fallen on hard times, she had come to the Palace with an introduction from the Queen Mother. She had been an extremely intelligent, brilliant woman, whose husband had been in the Diplomatic Service. When he died, she had been left with very little money and what Zosina realised later was a broken heart.
    The Queen Mother who had always helped everybody who turned to her in trouble, had thought that it would take her mind off what she had lost if she had young people around her.
    As her granddaughters were in the process of inevitable change of Governesses, it had been easy for Frau Weber to fill the post.
    Zosina realised at once how different her intellect and her ability to teach was from that of any Governess they had had before and she felt herself respond to Frau Weber like a flower opening towards the sun.
    However, her joy in being with somebody who could tell her so much that she wanted to know and guide her in a way she had never experienced before was short-lived.
    An old friend of Frau Weber’s husband came to Lützelstein on a diplomatic visit with the Prime Minister of Belgium and had renewed his acquaintance with the widow of his old friend.
    When he left two weeks later, Zosina learned in consternation that Frau Weber was to be married again. “Then you will leave us!” she cried.
    “I am afraid so,” Frau Weber replied, “but I know I shall be happy with someone I have known for a great number of years.”
    The Archduchess had been extremely annoyed that as a Governess Frau Weber had made so short a stay in the Palace.
    “It is most inconvenient and very bad for the girls to have so many changes,” she had said tartly to the Archduke.
    “We can hardly expect the poor woman to give up a chance of marriage for the doubtful privilege of staying here with us,” he replied.
    “I find people’s selfishness and lack of consideration for others is very prevalent these days,” his wife retorted.
    It was Zosina who had cried when Frau Weber had left and she knew, as soon as she saw the woman who was to take her place, that she would never again find a Governess who understood how important knowledge was or how to impart it.
    Thinking of her now, she said reminiscently,
    “I wish I could talk to Frau Weber about my marriage.”
    “She is living in Belgium,” Katalin said practically.
    “Yes, I know it’s impossible,” Zosina replied, “but it would be pleasant to talk to somebody who understood.”
    “I understand,” Katalin said. “You just have to believe it will all come right, and it will! Thinking what you want is magic. You don’t have to rub an Aladdin’s lamp or wave a special wand. You just have to focus your brain.”
    “Now who on earth told you that?” Zosina asked.
    “I cannot remember, but I have always known it. I expect really it’s the same as prayer. You want and want and want until suddenly it’s there!”
    Zosina suddenly put her