"Townpark Hotel," a big, recently enlarged and renovated establishment in the southern suburbs, and provided the bourgeois circles with an opportunity of establishing friendly relations with the Court. It was known that Johann Albrecht III had never cultivated a taste for this civil and rather free-and-easy entertainment, at which he appeared in a black frock-coat in order to lead off the polonaise with the Lady Mayoress, and that he was wont to with draw from it at the earliest possible moment. This only heightened the general satisfaction when his second son, although not yet bound to do so, already made his appearance at the ball that year—indeed, it became known that he did so at his own express request. It was said that the Prince had employed Excellency von Knobelsdorff to transmit his earnest wish to the Grand Duchess, who in her turn had contrived to obtain her husband's consent.
Outwardly the festivity pursued its wonted course. The most distinguished guests, Princess Catherine, in a coloured silk dress and cap, accompanied by her red-haired children, Prince Lambert with his pretty wife, and last of all Johann Albrecht and Dorothea with Prince Klaus Heinrich made their appearance in the "Townpark Hotel," greeted by city officials, with long-ribboned rosettes pinned on their coats, several Ministers, aides-de-camp in mufti, numbers of men and women of the Court, the leaders of society, as well as landowners from the surrounding country, were present. In the big white hall the Grand Ducal pairs first received a string of presentations, and then, to the strains of the band which sat in the curved gallery up above, Johann Albrecht with the Lady Mayoress, Dorothea with the Lord Mayor, opened the ball by a procession round the room.
Then, while the polonaise gave place to a round dance, contentment spread, cheeks glowed, the heat of the throng kindled feelings of fondness, faintness, and foreboding
