s at him in order not to let pretty Elspet
Zohrer have the precedence. But he had himself confessed how much
farther he had entered the snare than she intended when, on her way home
from Fran Lerch's after her meeting with Wolf, the young officer had met
her outside of the Grieb and sued for her hand.

Now the amorous swain had probably tried his luck with her father, and
how the latter, in spite of poor Wolf and Herr Schlumperger, had treated
him was evident from the fact that he, who usually closed his home
against old friends, opened it wide to this stranger.

This was not only unpleasant to Barbara, but anger crimsoned her cheeks.

How dared the man whom she had so positively and sternly refused venture
to continue his suit? Since the Emperor had loved her, she felt
raised infinitely above the poor nobleman. Nay, she considered it a
reprehensible impropriety that he still sought her. And, besides what
consequences the visit of so stately a ladykiller, whose unusual height
rendered him easily recognised, might now entail upon her! Suppose that
he should meet a messenger from the Emperor on the stairs, or it should
be rumoured at court that she received such visitors. How quickly
whatever happened in Ratisbon was noised abroad among the people she had
just learned through the Woller girls.

The happiness which filled her was so great that everything which
threatened to affect it, even remotely, alarmed her, and thus anxiety
blended with indignation as, deeply agitated, she interrupted her
father, and in the most unfilial manner reproached him for allowing the
flattery of a boastful coxcomb to make him forget what he owned to her
and her good name.

The brave champion of the faith dejectedly, almost humbly, strove
to soothe her, and at least induce her not to offend his guest by
unfriendly words; but she ignored his warnings with defiant passion,
and when the recruiting officer, who had been detained some time on
the staircase by the Wollers, knocked at the door, she shot the bolt
noisily, calling to her father in a tone so loud that it could not fail
to be heard outside: "I repeat it, I will neither see nor speak to this
importunate gentleman. When he attacked me in the street at night, I
thought I showed him plainly enough how I felt. If he forces his way
into our house now, receive him, for aught I care; you have a right to
command here. But if he undertakes to speak to me, he can wait for an
answer till the da