height from which to look
down upon others and show her own generosity to them, had been the
longing of her life. She was still permitted to feel herself the object
of the love of the mightiest sovereign on earth, and should she be
denied performing, by her own power, an act of deliverance to which
heart and mind urged her?

No, and again no!

She was no longer poor Wawerl!

She could and would show this, for, like an illumination, words which
she had heard the day before in the Golden Cross had flashed into her
memory.

Master Wenzel Jamnitzer, the famous Nuremberg goldsmith, had addressed
them to her in the imperial apartments, where he had listened to her
singing the day before.

He had come to consult with the Emperor Charles about the diadems which
he wished to give his two nieces, the daughters of Ferdinand, King
of the Romans, who were to be married in July in Ratisbon. Their
manufacture had been intrusted to Master Jamnitzer, and after the
concert the Nuremberg artist had thanked Barbara for the pleasure which
he owed her. In doing so, he had noticed the Emperor's first gift,
the magnificent star which she wore on her breast at the side of her
squarenecked dress. Examining it with the eye of an expert, he had
remarked that the central stone alone was worth an estate.

If she deprived herself of this superb ornament, the despairing old
mother would be consoled, and the lovely child saved from hunger and
disgrace.

With Barbara, thought, resolve, and action followed one another in rapid
succession.

"You shall have what you need to-morrow," she called to the marquise,
kissed--obeying a hasty impulse--her little namesake's picture, rejected
any expression of thanks from the astonished old dame, and went to rest.

Frau Lerch had never seen her so radiant with happiness, yet she was
irritated by the reserve of the girl for whom she thought she had
sacrificed so much, yet whose new garments had already brought her more
profit than the earnings of the three previous years.

The next morning Master Jamnitzer called the valuable star his own,
and pledged himself to keep the matter secret, and to obtain from the
Fuggers a bill of exchange upon Paris for ten thousand lire.

The honest man sent her through the Haller banking house a thousand
ducats, that he might not be open to the reproach of having defrauded
her.

Yet the gold which she did not need for the marquise seemed to Barbara
like money unjustly