steward Steen, had been shown the kitchen, the stable, the four
horses, and the garden. In her reception-room she found a lute and a
harp of exquisitely beautiful workmanship, and a small Milan cabinet
made of ebony inlaid with ivory, in which was a heavy casket bound with
silver. The key had been given to her the evening before by the regent
herself, and when Barbara opened it she discovered so many shining
zecchins and ducats that a long time was occupied when she obeyed Fran
Lerch's request to count them.

The dressmaker from the Grieb was already in her service, and had been
a witness of her sincere delight and grateful pleasure. The second hour
after their arrival she had helped her to employ Frau Lamperi, the maid
whom the steward called the 'garde-robiere', and had already been to the
city herself to buy, for her fortunate "darling" costly but, on account
of the approach of summer, light materials. But she had seen Master
Adrian corning, and, while he was passing through the garden, gave her
the advice by no means to praise what she found here, but to appear as
though she had been accustomed to such surroundings, and found this and
that not quite worthy of her, but needing addition and improvement.

At first Barbara had succeeded in assuming the airs of the spoiled lady,
but when Adrian, with prosaic definiteness, asked for details, and she
saw herself compelled to begin the game of dissimulation anew, it grew
repugnant to her.

To her artist nature every restraint soon became irksome, especially so
unpleasant a one, which was opposed to her character, and ere she was
her self aware of it she was again the vivacious Wawerl, and frankly and
freely expressed her pleasure in the beautiful new things she owed to
her lover's kindness.

A smile, so faint and brief that Barbara did not perceive it, was
hovering meanwhile around the valet's thin lips. The causes of this
strange change of opinion and mood would have been sufficiently
intelligible to him, even had he not perceived one of the reproving
glances which Frau Lerch cast at Barbara.

She, too, had met one; but since she had once obeyed the impulse of
her own nature, and felt content in doing so, she troubled herself no
further about the monitor, and there was nothing in her new home which
was not far more beautiful than what she had had in the precentor's
modest house.

The marquise displeased her most deeply, and this also she plainly told
Master Adrian,