"It all comes from mixing the blood," said the Prime Minister
gloomily.

"Or improving it," said the Baron, and was frowned upon.

And no one saw the portentous shadow cast by the slim daughter of
William W. Blithers, for the simple reason that neither Graustark nor
Dawsbergen knew that it existed. They lived in serene ignorance of
the fact that God, while he was about it, put Maud Applegate Blithers
into the world on precisely the same day that the Crown Princess of
Dawsbergen first saw the light of day.

On the twenty-second anniversary of his birth, Prince Robin fared
forth in quest of love and romance, not without hope of adventure,
for he was a valorous chap with the heritage of warriors in his
veins. Said he to himself in dreamy contemplation of the long journey
ahead of him: "I will traverse the great highways that my mother trod
and I will look for the Golden Girl sitting by the wayside. She must
be there, and though it is a wide world, I am young and my eyes are
sharp. I will find her sitting at the roadside eager for me to come,
not housed in a gloomy; castle surrounded by the spooks of a hundred
ancestors. They who live in castles wed to hate and they who wed at
the roadside live to love. Fortune attend me! If love lies at the
roadside waiting, do not let me pass it by. All the princesses are
not inside the castles. Some sit outside the gates and laugh with
glee, for love is their companion. So away I go, la, la! looking for
the princess with the happy heart and the smiling lips! It is a wide
world but my eyes are sharp. I shall find my princess."

But, alas, for his fine young dream, he found no Golden Girl at the