s
face darkened with anger. Had some serving-maids dared to creep up to
watch the doings in the banqueting-hall? But there was no one in the
gallery, and she bent down, peering through the stucco balustrade into
the hall below. Her attention was arrested by a cackling snigger behind
her--a horrid, mocking, wheezy titter in the shadow of the overhanging
ornamentation of the banqueting-hall roof, which came low down over the
little gallery. She turned quickly and saw the grotesque, ape-like figure
of one of the court dwarfs. Her Excellency had introduced these hideous
abortions into Ludwigsburg, having read that they were a feature of the
Spanish court in its grandest days. Eberhard Ludwig, disgusted at the
sight of the puny monstrosities, had refused to permit them to go about
the palace, and they had been relegated, poor displeasing toys, to the
servants' regions. Here they were kicked and cuffed and made cruel sport
of. During the foregoing winter one dwarf had died, and the other roamed
around like some miserable outcast cur, lurking in dark corners, hiding
from all living things, which he accounted rightly as his tormentors. He
cowered before the Landhofmeisterin, laughing his horrible, cackling
snigger, which was half mockery, half terror. He expected the
Landhofmeisterin to push him brutally aside, but her sorrow had made her
suddenly gentle; she felt dimly that this wretched creature was an
outcast, and so was she. 'Poor dwarf,' she said gently, 'I had thought
you were dead! So you still wander in this vale of tears?' She spoke
almost mockingly, and yet there was that in her tone which gave hope to
the wretched being.

'O Madame, I am so miserable! They beat me, cuff me, the serving-maids
pinch me, scratch me with their bodkins! They say you are hard and cold
and cruel, but oh, have mercy on me!'

'_I_ hard and cold and cruel?' she replied incredulously. 'Do they say
that?' She had no idea that success and prosperity had thus changed her;
the world-hardened never know it themselves.

'Ah, yes, they say that; but, I pray you, have mercy on me.' The poor,
distorted figure threw itself down, grovelling at the Landhofmeisterin's
feet.

'Go to my apartments in the pavilion and await me, I will attend to you
in an hour's time. Stay, here is my ring; show that to the sentry and he
will admit you,' she said. She would send him back to his Swiss mountain
valley with gold enough to last him for his lifetime. Perhaps, if