The summer of 1882 was marked by special news from Boston.
Bart was traveling with friends through Italy, and Beth had gone with Eugénie to Vienna to meet the glamorous Elizabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for a tour of the Southern Carpathian Mountains.
Philo joined Bart's party for a week in Venice, then took Bart to catch up to the Empress Elizabeth, the Empress Eugénie and Beth in Romania.
 A cablegram from Annie in Boston reached Philo in the Transylvanian Alps where the eccentric Elizabeth was encamped with a Gypsy queen and her tribe.
The message was delivered to Philo while they sat on camp chairs beside an open fire, enjoying the ravishing spectacle of wild Gypsy dancing.
He retired with Bart to a tent beyond the range of the music. As Philo opened the envelope, Beth slipped into the tent and sat down beside Bart. She smiled and took his hand in hers.
"'Dear Master Angel Hair,'" Philo read aloud, "'You are a grandfather at last, and my Little Bart is an uncle. Our Ardie has become the father of a healthy boy named Bradley. Ardie tells me that was the name of your father. Congratulations. Congratulate me, also. This means that Old Annie has a new boy! Come see us when you can. Tell Beth I would like a little girl next time. Can she do something about that? Love, Annie.'"
Beth cast her gaze downward, excused herself, and left the tent.
When she returned to the campfire, the Empress Elizabeth, dressed as a Gypsy in the spirit of the evening, took her by the arm.
"Come, my darling," she whispered, "I have something special for you."
She escorted Beth to the Gypsy queen's tent at the center of the camp. A fringe of beads hung from the door frame. Inside, the light was dim, and smoky curls of burning incense spiraled up from champlevé urns.
"Sit here." Elizabeth motioned peremptorily to a table faced on opposite sides by two chairs. "Your fortune will be told by the best seer in Europe, perhaps in the world. I assure you, she knows. Had Eugénie but listened to Queen Ruzhenka when she told her years ago that her kingdom would be lost if her husband continued to listen to the wrong voices, France would still be an Empire today, and the Prince Imperial would never have gone to South Africa to die! Listen, young woman! Listen!"
The Hapsburg Empress wheeled abruptly and strode out of the tent.
No sooner had she left than a cynical snigger echoed from behind an East Indian sheesham-wood screen.
"Not even she will listen," said a deep-throated, heavily accented, female voice. "She is an autocrat of autocrats, but she would do well to humble herself before God! A great tragedy, nay, two great tragedies, are coming to her. Not soon, but they will come. I have told her. She does not believe. Yet she asks you to believe."
A dark woman in a silken turban and blouse, wearing voluminous satin skirts, all in red, yellow, and green, emerged to Beth's view. Her ears, throat, and arms were lavishly hung with gold coins that jangled as she walked on bare feet across rich Turkey carpets spread in layers on the floor of the tent. Even her ankles were hung with gold, and her painted toes, like her fingers, were encrusted with jeweled rings.
Beth had met the queen, had even talked with her, but this night she had a different look, of one transformed.
She sat down facing Beth and clasped her hands before her on the table.
Uncertainly, with her eyes lowered, Beth extended her hands, palms upward.
Queen Ruzhenka sneered. "No! Here there are no cheap tricks. No reading of the palms. No crystal ball. Here there is only the mind, the one mind that includes us all. Look at me!"
The Gypsy spoke with such total authority that it startled Beth into doing as she was ordered. Her eyes met the most piercing orbs she had ever seen. As much as she would have liked to leap to her feet and run, their power froze her to the chair. It could have been a lifetime or a minute that she remained immobilized, but when it ended suddenly, Beth fell back limply in her chair.
Queen Ruzhenka rose. "You may go," she commanded.
Like an obedient, chastened child, Beth got to her feet, turned away, and was in the act of parting the beads at the door when words that first warmed, then chilled, her heart echoed in her ears as if from far away. Startled, even frightened, she spun around, unsure that the voice she had heard was a human one, but the Gypsy queen was gone.
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