d with newly awakened defiance she closed
her ears to the warning voice.

The festival was commencing.

She, too, would be gay for once, and if she was cautious the bold
enterprise must succeed. A merry evening awaited her and, if all went
well, on the morrow, after a few unpleasant hours, her lover's whole
heart would once more be hers.

When she reached the scene of festivity it was already thronged with
richly attired princes and counts, knights and ladies, citizens of
Ratisbon, as well as nobles and distinguished townspeople from the
neighbouring castles, citadels, and cities.

Music and a loud medley of shouts and conversation greeted her at her
entrance. Her heart throbbed quickly, for she did not forget her daring
purpose, and a throng of memories of modest but more carefree days rushed
upon her.

Here, when a little girl, she had attended the May festival
Virgatum--which owed its name to the green rods or twigs with which the
school children adorned themselves--and played under yonder lindens with
Wolf, with the wilder Erasmus, and other boys. How delightful it had
been!--and when the enlarged band of city pipers struck up a gavotte her
feet unconsciously kept time, and she could not help thinking of the last
dance in the New Scales, the recruiting officer who had guided her so
firmly and skilfully in the Schwabeln, and through him of her father, of
whom she had not thought again since the good news received two evenings
before.

She still stood at the crowded entrance gazing around her.

The interior of the imperial tent could not be seen from here, but she
could overlook the stand of the noble families, and there she saw her
cousins Anne Mirl and Nandl Woller, with Martina Hiltner beside them.

She had refused to receive all three in her little castle at Prebrunn;
the true reason she alone knew. Her excuse had perhaps appeared to the
girls trivial and unkind.

Now her glance met Nandl's, and her warmhearted friend beckoned eagerly
to her; but her mother drew her arm down, and it was evident that the
corpulent lady said something reproving.

Barbara looked away from the stand, and the question where her place was
here suddenly disturbed her.

She had received no invitation from the Council of the city, and perhaps
she would have been refused admittance to the stand. She did not know
whether before the Emperor's arrival she would be received in the court
tent, which Cardinal Madrucci of Trent, in s