nay, could
not, live.

'You must abide by this, Madame, and if you are peaceably disposed, and
behave with becoming consideration to her Excellency the
Landhofmeisterin, it will be possible for you to remain in Stuttgart,' he
told her.

Her Highness made no reply to this surprising speech, but immediately
wrote to Stetten, imploring the Duchess-mother to come and put order into
the family affairs. The dear lady arrived in high dudgeon, and according
to her custom stated her opinion to Eberhard Ludwig in words he could not
misunderstand. But in vain, and it was a very crestfallen, angry old lady
who drove back through the fields to Stetten.

The court was in a quandary, in comparison to which the former
perplexities in regard to the Graevenitzin were mere bagatelles. If they
refused to go to court festivities where the Landhofmeisterin, after the
Duchess, held the first rank, they would risk being excluded from court
perhaps for years. Again, who knew how soon the favourite might fall
into disgrace, or be banished once more by some unexpected event? There
was much talk and fervid declarations of noble sentiments, loyalty to the
Duchess, love of purity, and the rest; but when Wilhelmine invited the
entire court to visit her at the Jaegerhaus, on the occasion of a grand
evening rout, it was noticeable that those few who did not appear sent
copious excuses, pretending illness, and adding almost medical
descriptions of their ailments, so anxious were they that Wilhelmine
should believe them to be really indisposed! Already it was considered
dangerous to offend the Graevenitzin, as they still called the Countess of
Wuerben, her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, but to her face she was
'your Excellency,' and they paid her great court.

Naturally the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha held aloof, but she knew she
must one day meet her rival face to face, one day take part in a court
festivity where the woman would be only second in formal rank, in reality
the first in the estimation of all.

The winter days grew short and dark, and Christmas approached. Christmas
rejoicings with this sinful woman queening it at masque and dance! Even
from informal family gatherings the Landhofmeisterin, as first lady in
the land, could not be excluded.

'Dear and honoured Madame my Mother,' Johanna Elizabetha wrote, 'I have
to meet this woman again. Let the first encounter not be before the
world. I will invite her to our Christmas tree. Come you