H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the
life of Morton Carlton--or "Morney" Carlton, as men called
him--of New York city, when that young gentleman's affairs and
affections were best suited to receive her. Had she made her
appearance three years sooner or three years later, it is
quite probable that she would have passed on out of his life
with no more recognition from him than would have been
expressed in a look of admiring curiosity.

But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both
unoccupied, she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which
led him into doing several wise and many foolish things, and
which remained with him always. Carlton had reached a point
in his life, and very early in his life, when he could afford
to sit at ease and look back with modest satisfaction to what
he had forced himself to do, and forward with pleasurable
anticipations to whatsoever he might choose to do in the
future. The world had appreciated what he had done, and had
put much to his credit, and he was prepared to draw upon this
grandly.

At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
excellent family connections, but with no family, his only
relative being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the
point of view of the Union Club's windows, and who objected to
his nephew's leaving Harvard to take up the study of art in
Paris. In that city (where at Julian's he was nicknamed the