e interceded too warmly for
this peculiar creature and her excitable artist nature.

CHAPTER III.

Silence pervaded the little castle in Prebrunn; nay, there were days
when a thick layer of straw in the road showed that within the house lay
some one seriously ill, who must be guarded from every sound.

In Ratisbon and the Golden Cross, on the contrary, the noise and bustle
constantly increased. On the twenty-eighth of May, King Ferdinand
arrived with his family to visit his brother Charles. The Reichstag
would be opened on the fifth of June, and attracted to the Danube many
princes and nobles, but neither the Elector John of Saxony nor the
Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the heads of the Smalcald league. King
Ferdinand's two daughters were to be married the first of July, and
many a distinguished guest came to Ratisbon in June. Besides, several
soldiers began to appear.

The Emperor Charles's hours were filled to the brim with work and social
obligations. The twinges of the gout had not wholly disappeared, but
remained bearable.

The quiet good-breeding of the two young archduchesses pleased the
Emperor, and their young brother Maximilian's active mind and gay,
chivalrous nature delighted him, though many a trait made him, as well
as the confessor, doubt whether he did not incline more toward the
evangelical doctrine than beseemed a son of his illustrious race. But
Charles himself, in his youth, had not been a stranger to such leanings.
If Maximilian was intrusted with the reins of government, he would
perceive in what close and effective union stood the Church and the
state. Far from rousing his opposition by reproaches, the shrewd uncle
won his affection and merely sowed in his mind, by apt remarks, the
seeds which in due time would grow and bear their fruit.

The Austrians watched with sincere admiration the actually exhausting
industry of the illustrious head of their house, for he allowed himself
only a few hours' sleep, and when Granvelle had worked with him until
he was wearied, he buried himself, either alone or with some officers
of high rank, in charts of the seat of war, in making calculations,
arranging the levying of recruits and military movements, and yet
did not withdraw from the society of his Viennese relatives and other
distinguished guests.

Still, he did not forget Barbara. The leech was daily expected to give
a report of her health, and when, during the middle of June, Dr. Mathys
expresse