g thither from Landshut. The waters there had benefited the
Emperor Charles fourteen years before, and Barbara remained there with
Frau Traut and Lamperi, who had returned to her, until the trees had put
on their gay autumn robes and were casting them off to prepare for the
rest of winter.

The hope of regaining the melody of her voice induced her
conscientiously to follow the physician's prescriptions but, like the
sulphur spring of Abbach,[??] they produced no considerable effect.

Barbara's conduct had also altered in many respects.

The girl who had formerly devoted great attention to her dress, now
often needed to be reminded by Frau Dubois of her personal appearance
when she went with her to walk or to church.

She avoided all intercourse with other visitors to the spring after
Ratisbon acquaintances had intentionally shunned her.

The Wollers' country residence, where she had formerly been a welcome
guest for weeks every summer, was near Abbach. Anne Mirl was betrothed,
and Nandl was on the eve of accepting a young suitor. Both were still
warmly attached to their cousin, although they had been told that, by an
open love intrigue, she had forfeited the right to visit the respectable
home of modest maidens. But the man who had honoured her with his love
was no less a personage than the Emperor Charles, and this circumstance
only increased the sympathy which the sisters felt for their
much-admired friend.

In spite of their mother's refusal to permit them to ride to the
neighbouring town and visit Barbara, they did so, that they might try
to comfort her; but though their unfortunate cousin received them and
listened to them a short time, she earnestly entreated them to obey
their mother and not come again.

Frau Traut perceived that she not only desired to guard the
inexperienced girls from trouble, but that their visit disturbed her.
The thoughts which were in her mind so completely absorbed her that she
now studiously sought the solitude which she had formerly shunned like a
misfortune.

Even Pyramus Kogel's short letter, informing her of her father's
convalescence, and the news from the seat of war which Frau Traut
communicated to her to divert her thoughts, and which she had usually
anticipated with impatient expectation, awakened only a fleeting
interest. Toward the end of the first week in September her companion
could inform her that the Emperor Charles had met the Smalcalds
at Ingolstadt and, in sp