mations of
amazement, and laughter of her companions.

But while her father, striking his broad chest, cried again and again,
with rapturous delight, "A paragon of a woman!" and Seitz Siebenburg, in
bitter disappointment, whispered, "The fourteen saintly helpers in time
of need might learn from you how to draw from the clamps what is not
worth rescue and probably despaired of escape," she was trying to give
time to recover more composure her young hostess, to whom she was
sincerely attached, and who, she felt sure, could have met Heinz
Schorlin, who perhaps had come hither on her own account, only by some
cruel chance. So she added in a quieter tone: "And now, Jungfrau Ortlieb,
in sober earnest I will ask your protection and guidance through the dark
house, and meanwhile you shall tell me how Sir Heinz greeted you and what
passed between you, either good or bad, during the time of waiting."

Els summoned up her courage and answered loud enough to be heard by all
present: "We were speaking of you, Countess Cordula, and the knight said:

"I ventured to remark, Countess," said Heinz, interrupting the new ally,
"that though you might understand how to show a poor knight his folly, no
kinder heart than yours throbbed under any bodice in Switzerland, Swabia,
or France." Cordula struck him lightly on the shoulder with her riding
whip, saying with a laugh: "Who permits you to peep under women's bodices
through so wide a tract of country, you scamp? Had I been in Jungfrau
Ortlieb's place I should have punished your entry into a respectable
house:

"Oh, my dear Countess," Heinz interrupted, and his words bore so
distinctly the stamp of truth and actual experience that even Sir Seitz
Siebenburg was puzzled, "though I am always disposed to be grateful to
you, I cannot feel a sense of obligation for this lady's reception of me,
even to the most gracious benefactress. For, by my patron saint, she
forbade me the house as if I were a thief and a burglar."

"And she was right!" exclaimed the countess. "I would have treated you
still more harshly. Only you would have spared yourself many a sharp word
had you confessed at once that it was I who summoned you here. I'll talk
with you tomorrow, and am I not right, Jungfrau Elsyou won't make him
suffer for losing the wager, but exercise your domestic authority after a
more gentle fashion?"

While speaking, she looked at Els with a glance so full of meaning that
the young girl's cheeks c