too, dear Madame
my Mother, even if there is snow on the ground, to help your unhappy
daughter, Johanna Elizabetha.' Thus she wrote to the formidable dame at
Stetten.

It must be conceded that for the favourite this family gathering to which
she was bidden presented disagreeable prospects of extreme difficulty,
and she craved Eberhard Ludwig to permit her to decline the honour, but
Serenissimus implored her to consent. It would be unwise to rebuff the
Duchess's overture, and after all, possibly it was her Highness's
intention to live peaceably with her husband's mistress. Other ladies had
done so. He quoted history and recent events: Louis XIV., Louise de la
Valliere, and Marie Therese of France, and so on. Also he represented to
her that the first meeting with Johanna Elizabetha would be a trifle
awkward with the whole court agape, so perhaps this private family
gathering was an excellent opportunity; besides, as Landhofmeisterin, it
was correct she should be included in the Petit Cercle.

She mocked at the homely custom of the Christmas tree, calling it
unfitting for a grand seigneur's household to indulge in such
old-fashioned peasant-like rejoicings.

'Can you dream of such a festivity at Versailles?' she asked, laughing.

He told her that his mother clung to the habit. It was an ancient German
custom thus to celebrate the Birth of Christ.

'I love the notion, too, that in all my villages the peasants can have
the same as I have, for once, poor souls!' he added simply.

'Eberhard, you are ridiculous!--yes, a ridiculous poet-fellow. But I will
come to your peasant celebration, if it pleases you.' She was touched by
this gentle saying of his.

And thus it fell out that on Christmas eve Wilhelmine ordered her coach
to convey her to the castle. She drove through the snow in no happy frame
of mind. Christmas trees and the favourite!--could anything be more
incongruous? and she knew it. Angrily she sneered at the simple
homeliness of the old German custom. Peasants could do these absurdities,
but the Duchess of Wirtemberg?

* * * * *

In the long room where the madrigals had been sung on that
well-remembered evening when Wilhelmine was installed lady-in-waiting to
her Highness, a tall fir-tree was planted in a gilded barrel. A thousand
twinkling lights burned on the branches, and little trinkets dangled
temptingly. Overhead, on the topmost branch, the waxen Christmas angel
with t