l
of her nieces, the daughters of King Ferdinand, was to be sent to the
Imperial Councillor Schonberg at Vienna. It must be written in German,
because the receiver understood no other language.

After she had told the knight the purpose of the letter, she left him;
the vesper service summoned her, and afterward Barbara detained her
as she sang to the Emperor, alone and accompanied by Appenzelder's boy
choir, several songs, and in a manner so thoroughly artistic that the
Queen lingered not only in obedience to her brother's wish, but from
pleasure in the magnificent music, until the end of the concert.

Just as Wolf, seated in the writing room, which was always at his
disposal, finished the letter, the major-domo, Don Luis Quijada, sought
him.

He had already intimated several times that he had something in view
for him which promised to give Wolf's life, in his opinion, a new and
favourable turn. Now he made his proposal.

The duties imposed upon him by the service compelled him to live apart
from his beloved, young, and beautiful wife, Dona Magdalena de Ulloa,
who had remained at his castle Villagarcia in Spain. She possessed
but one true comforter in her solitude--music. But the person who had
hitherto instructed her--the family chaplain--was dead. So far as his
ability and his taste were concerned, it would have been easy to replace
him, but Quijada sought in his successor qualities which rarely adorned
a single individual, but which he expected to find united in the knight.

In the first place, the person he desired must be, like the chaplain,
of noble birth; for to see his wife closely associated with a man of
inferior station was objectionable to the Spanish grandee, who was
perhaps the most popular of all the officers in the army, not only on
account of his valour in the field, but also for the kindly good will
and absolute justice which he bestowed upon even the humblest soldier.

That the chaplain's successor must be a good artist, thoroughly familiar
with Netherland and Italian music, was a matter of course. But Don Luis
also demanded from Dona Magdalena's new teacher and household companion
graceful manners, a modest disposition, and, above all things, a
character on which he could absolutely rely. Not that he would have
cherished any fears of the fidelity of the wife whom he honoured as the
purest and noblest of her sex, and of whom he spoke to the knight with
reverence and love; he desired only to gua