e anxiety from her golden-haired
favourite to her brother, and then back to Barbara.

Such reckless forwardness ill beseemed a chaste Ratisbon maiden and the
future wife of a Peter Schlumperger, and she would gladly have urged
departure. But some of the city pipers had been sent to the forest, and
when they began to play, and Herr Peter himself invited the young people
to dance, her good humour wholly disappeared; for Barbara, whom the
young gentlemen eagerly sought, had devoted herself to dancing with
such passionate zest that at last her luxuriant hair became completely
loosened, and for several measures fluttered wildly around her. True,
she had instantly hastened deeper into the woods with Nandl Woller,
her cousin, to fasten it again, but the incident had most unpleasantly
wounded Frau Kastenmayr's strict sense of propriety.

Nothing unusual ought to happen to a girl of Barbara's age, and the
careless manner in which she treated what had befallen her before
the eyes of so many men angered the austere widow so deeply that
she withdrew a large share of her favour. This was the result of the
continual singing.

Any other girl would fasten her hair firmly and resist flying in the
dance from one man's arm to another's, especially in the presence of a
suitor who was in earnest, and who held aloof from these amusements of
youth.

Doubtless it was her duty to keep her brother from marriage with a
girl who, so long as her feet were moving in time to the violins and
clarionets, did not even bestow a single side glance upon her estimable
lover.

So her displeasure had caused the early departure.

Torch-bearers rode at the head of the tolerably long train of the
residents of Ratisbon, and some of the guests carried cressets. So
there was no lack of light, and as the lantern in her neighbour's hand
permitted the baron to recognise Barbara, Malfalconnet, according to
the agreement, rode up to the singer, while Wolf accosted Herr Peter
Schlumperger, and informed him of the invitation which the steward, in
the Emperor's name, was bringing his fair guest.

The Ratisbon councillor allowed him to finish his explanation, and then
with quiet dignity remarked that his Majesty's summons did not concern
him. It rested entirely with jungfrau Blomberg to decide whether she
would accept it at so late an hour.

But Barbara had already determined.

The assent was swift and positive, but neither the light of the more
distant torches