Now he had left her; but she could wait for her father no longer. She
must go to Fran Lerch.

The idea of confiding to her the secret which filled her with happy
dread was far from her thoughts; but love had both increased her vanity
tenfold, and confined it within narrower limits. She could not be
beautiful enough for the lover who awaited her, yet she wished to be
beautiful for him alone. But her stock of gowns and finery was so very
scanty, and no one understood how to set off her charms so well as
the obliging, experienced old woman, who had an expedient for every
emergency.

Retiring to her little bow-windowed room, she examined her store of
clothes.

There, too, lay her royal lover's gift, the glittering star.

She involuntarily seized it to take the jewel to the Grieb and show
it to the old woman; but the next instant, with a strange feeling of
dissatisfaction, she flung it back again among the other contents of the
chest.

Thus, in her impetuous fashion, she thrust it out of her sight. Maestro
Gombert had pronounced the star extremely valuable, and she desired
nothing from the Emperor Charles, nothing from her beloved lord save his
love.

She had already reached the outer door, when her two Woller cousins from
the Ark greeted her. They were merry girls, by no means plain, and very
fond of her. The younger, Anne Mirl, was even considered pretty, and had
many suitors. They had learned from their house steward, who had been
told by a fellow-countryman in the royal service, that his Majesty had
rewarded Barbara for her exquisite singing with a magnificent ornament,
and they wanted to see it.

So Barbara was obliged to open the chest again, and when the star
flashed upon them the rich girls clapped their hands in admiration, and
Anne Mirl did not understand how any one could toss such an exquisite
memento into a chest as if it were a worn-out glove. If the Emperor
Charles had honoured her with such a gift, she would never remove it
from her neck, but even wear it to bed.

"Everybody to her taste," replied Barbara curtly, shrugging her
shoulders.

Never had her cousins seemed to her so insignificant and commonplace;
and, besides, their visit was extremely inopportune.

But the Woller sisters were accustomed to see her in all sorts of moods,
and Nandl, the elder, a quiet, thoughtful girl, asked her how she felt.
To possess such heavenly gifts as her voice and her beauty must be the
most glorious of all