z. As the door closed upon
the two courtiers, Eberhard Ludwig snatched a crumpled paper from his
breast. It was the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's formal command to her
guests to appear at her private concert of madrigals:--

'Le Chambellan de
Son Altesse

MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE WIRTEMBERG

a l'honneur d'inviter Madame de Stafforth ce Lundi
25 Juin a 8 heures du soir.

Je regrette de ne pas pouvoir inviter des voyageurs etrangers.--J. E.'

Signed and annotated, you will see, by her Highness's own hand. Beneath
which, in strong, manlike characters, was written--

'Ce soir a onzes heures.--PHILOMELE.'

And it is a matter of history that his Highness Eberhard Ludwig of
Wirtemberg did _not_ keep his tryst at dawn with Oberhofmarshall
Stafforth and Friedrich Graevenitz in the Rothwald.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GHETTO

THE new lady-in-waiting was installed in two rooms in the castle, very
near the roof and hard by Madame de Ruth's apartment. Wilhelmine received
a small income, also her food and the services of a waiting-woman of the
ducal household. This person was a large, fair-skinned Swabian--a
peasant, simple yet suspicious, loud-voiced, rough in manner, very tender
of heart. During the first days of her service she feared and disliked
her 'foreign' mistress, but, like every one whom Wilhelmine chose to
charm, Maria adored her before the week was out with that whole-hearted
devotion which servants sometimes give their employers, and which is
often so unequal a bargain. But it was not to prove so in this case, for
Wilhelmine responded readily to any genuine affection, and, proud as she
was, she was too proud to imagine that her freedom of speech and her easy
laughter could be met with undue familiarity, which indeed, as is usual
with the woman of true breeding, it never was. Maria remained devoted and
free spoken, though absolutely respectful. To her the 'Graevenitzin,' as
people began to call Wilhelmine, poured out the story of the numerous
petty annoyances which disturbed her, and the peasant girl learned to
regard her as a persecuted angel. Though her mistress's violent temper
flamed forth if the smallest detail of the toilet went amiss, and often,
indeed, for no apparent cause, the next moment the impression was erased
and the waiting-maid's heart soothed by some affectionate word or hasty,
almost childlik