arp wit, made her
attractive. For these traits people forgave her her ugly face and fifty
years of a past even less reputable than was usual in the eighteenth
century.

In her early youth, it was whispered, the Duke Wilhelm Ludwig, father of
the reigning Duke of Wirtemberg, had initiated her into the ways of the
world in general and of courts in particular; in gratitude wherefore she
was reputed to have performed the same office, twenty years later, for
his son Eberhard Ludwig. The Duke of Zollern, several Hohenlohes, and
many Gemmingens had been her slaves; not to mention other less
illustrious cavaliers to whom she had been rather more than kind. She was
now a useful friend to princes, and new arrivals at court found her
friendship indispensable, especially if the new arrival happened to be a
lady with aspirations to royal favour and a career. Up to date these
careers had been brilliant but short, and Madame de Ruth had generally
played an important part in each.

'Ah! Dieu! ces paysans, quelles brutes!' she said, as she looked at her
servant; and then speaking in the rough Wirtemberg dialect she continued:
'Heinrich, thy mother gave thee hands; God knows thy father did not
forget thy big feet. Use both and bring the punch, as I told thee; or I
will give thee hay for thy evening meal, as were fitting for an ass's
feed!' This somewhat drastic speech seemed to please the lad and to stir
up his slow wits, but the company looked surprised at the familiarity of
the 'thou,' it being the general custom in those days for superiors to
address their inferiors in the third person singular. Directly to address
a serving-man or maid was deemed incorrect, for it would have betokened
an unfitting equality. However, Madame de Ruth's peasant lad responded
with alacrity to his lady's homely speech, and in an astonishingly short
time he reappeared with an enormous bowl of the steaming hot spirits--the
punch, which Marlborough's army had brought into fashion on the
Continent, and which the damp of South Germany in the autumn made a
welcome beverage.

'Come, my friends, and drink to the sharpening of our wits, which are
strangely dull this evening. I must announce to you that I await the
visit to-night of the Duke of Zollern, but this cruel weather has proved,
I fear, too much even for his youthful sixty years.'

'Madame,' said Monsieur de Stafforth, 'if the Duke of Zollern does not
brave the elements, in order to visit you, he must i