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It was on the following morning that the Archduchess remarked to Miss Abbott -- they were walking on the third terrace and paused under the shade of a heavy tree -- "I have decided that the bodice of my costume shall be of blue velvet instead of black -- and the train."
Alexandra being too dumfounded to reply, Ranata continued, "I have concluded that superstitions are unworthy of any one who claims to live by the light of his reason. Therefore I have made up my mind deliberately to violate all that may still linger like weeds in my mind."