know she was
always serious and melancholy; but as if that circumstance were to
decide the fate of the war, she is now quite disconsolate, I don't
believe it is the idea of leaving Ulm that affects her; but I suspect,"
she added, mysteriously, "she has some secret attachment at heart."

"Yes, I have long remarked that," sighed Herr Dieterick; "but how can I
help it?"

"You! how can you help it?" laughed Marie, all signs of sorrow on
Bertha's account vanishing from her face at these words. "No, indeed,
you need not flatter yourself that you are the cause of her suffering.
She was in this state long before you ever saw her."

The worthy secretary was very much put out by this assurance. He
thought in his heart that a farewell from him was the real cause of
Bertha's state, and her care-worn countenance at this moment almost
regained the preponderance in his changeable heart. Marie went on to
deride his conceitedness, when all of a sudden he recollected the main
object of his visit, which he had lost sight of during the
conversation. Marie sprang up with a scream of joy, as her cousin
imparted to her the news of the ball.

"Bertha, Bertha!" she cried out, at the height of her voice, so that
her cousin, startled, and fearing lest some accident had happened,
hastened to her assistance. But before she had scarcely had time to
enter the room, Marie said again, "Bertha, a ball at the town-hall this
evening!"

This news was a happy surprise to her also. "When? are the strangers
invited also?" were her rapid questions, whilst a deep red covered her
cheeks, and a ray of joy shot from her sorrowful eyes, scarcely able to
contain their tears.

Marie and her cousin Kraft were both astonished at Bertha's rapid
change from depression of spirits to sudden joy, and Dieterick could
not help remarking, that he supposed she must be passionately fond of
dancing. But he was equally mistaken in this instance, as he was when
he mistook Albert von Sturmfeder for a connoisseur of wine.

Herr Kraft, supposing his cousins would now wish to occupy themselves
with the important preparation of dress, rather than listen to anything
else he might have to say, took his departure, to fulfil the rest of
his weighty duties. He hastened to give the requisite orders, and to
invite, in person, the principal guests, and higher families. He was
received everywhere as the messenger of good news; for tradition says,
that the pleasure of dancing is not the