her hair a costly
lace veil which she had ready for a customer.

"The valuable article may be lost," she thought. "But if, sooner or
later, something happens which my lambkin, who thinks only of her sweet
babble, does not dream, it will return to me with interest. Besides,
she must see what maternal affection I feel for her." Then, with tender
caution, she kissed the girl's glowing cheeks, and the blessing with
which she at last dismissed her sounded devout and loving enough.

Wolf had not waited long; it was just striking eleven when Barbara met
him at the door talking with Herr Lerch, the owner of the house.

Before leaving the Grieb, she again glanced into the chapel in the
courtyard dedicated to Saint Dorothea, and uttered a swift though
silent prayer for good success, and that her singing might have a deep
influence upon the august hearer.

Meanwhile she scarcely heeded what her friend was saying, and, while
walking at his side the short distance through a part of Red Cock Street
and across the Haidplatz, he had no words from her lips except the
request that he would tell her father of the great honour awaiting her.

Wolf, too, had imposed silence upon himself; it was necessary for
the singer, on the eve of this important performance, to refrain from
talking in the night air.

CHAPTER XV.

Baron Malfalconnet possessed the gift of lending Time wings and using
the simplest incident as the foundation for an entertaining story.

He knew that his Majesty did not like waiting, and the quarter of an
hour which Barbara had mentioned might easily become a longer period. So
he adorned the description of his ride as an envoy most generously with
many partially invented details. Wolf, Herr Peter Schlumperger,
Frau Kastenmayr, his estimable sister, and the party of Ratisbon
excursionists, upon whom he had scarcely bestowed a passing glance, all
played a large and by no means enviable part.

But he gained his object, for the impatient monarch listened gladly,
and all the more willingly in proportion to the more brilliant eloquence
with which the clever connoisseur of mankind placed Barbara in contrast
to all the obscure, insignificant, and ridiculous personages whom he
pretended to have met. The peculiar charm which her individuality thus
obtained corresponded with the idea which the monarch himself had formed
of the expected guest, and it flattered him to hear his conjecture so
remarkably confirmed.

A few que