n dawned upon me as I stood before Max and watched
Yolanda. I thought of her adroit plan to make trouble with France, and I
wanted to shout for joy. The impossible might yet happen. God's hand
surely had been in our journeying to Burgundy. Max might yet win this
peerless princess, this priceless girl; or, reverse it if you choose,
Mary of Burgundy might win this peerless man, and might at the same time
attain the unutterable joy of knowing that she had won him for her
own sake.

Perhaps her yearning had led her to hope that he might in the end be
willing to fling behind him his high estate for the sake of a burgher
girl. Then, when she had brought him to that resolution, what a joy it
would be to turn upon him and say: "I am not a burgher girl. I am
Princess Mary of Burgundy, and all these things which you are willing to
forego for my sake you may keep, and you may add to them the fair land
of Burgundy!" Her high estate and rich domains, now the tokens of her
thralldom, would then be her joy, since she could give them to Max.

While these bright hopes were filling my mind, Yolanda was playing well
her part. She, too, evidently meant to tell no lies, though she might be
forced to act many. Her fiery outburst against the Princess of Burgundy
astonished Max and almost startled me. Still, the conviction was strong
with him that Yolanda was Mary.

"If--if you are the princess, Yo--Yolanda," said Max, evidently
wavering, "it were ungracious to deceive me."

"But I _am_ the princess," cried Yolanda, lifting her head and walking
majestically to and fro. "Address me not by that low, plebeian
name, Yolanda."

She stepped upon a chair and thence to the top of the great oak table
that stood in the middle of the room. Drawing the chair up after her she
placed it on the table, and, seating herself on this improvised throne,
lifted one knee over the other, after the manner of her father. She
looked serenely about her in a most amusing imitation of the duke, and
spoke with a deep voice:--

"Heralds!"

No one responded. So she filled the office of herald herself and cried
out:--

"Oyez! Oyez! The princess now gives audience!" Resuming the ducal voice,
she continued, "Are there complaints, my Lord Seneschal?" A pause. "Ah,
our guards have stolen Grion's cow, have they? The devil take Grion and
his cow, too! Hang Grion for complaining." A pause ensues while the duke
awaits the next report. "The Swiss have stolen a sheepskin? Ah,