as one of those who in his way was laboring for the prize so soon to
be awarded by the city. If merit was to be the test of success, he
had but little chance; but where is that man and where are those minds
with whom rank and power have not their weight? He was, therefore, if
not the most formidable by intellect, at all events by circumstance,
the one of Dumiger's competitors the most to be dreaded, for his
father was the president of that council which presided over the
destinies of Dantzic, and who usurped more than imperial authority. He
belonged to the ancient house of Albrect, Grand Master of the Teutonic
Knights, and oldest freeman of the Hanseatic League. A strange, proud
man, who when he learned indirectly that his son Frederick was in love
with Marguerite, indulged in a storm of fearful indignation, until he
found from her that on no account did she intend to accept the suit;
and then, in spite of his gratification at the certainty that his
son could not make a marriage which he thought so discreditable,
his vanity was wounded at her decision, and even while he praised
Marguerite's disinterested conduct, in his heart he was garnering up
hatred against her. A blow to vanity is terrible, and it is a blow
which the humblest and weakest can give as well as the most powerful,
in the contempt or even the indifference expressed for the pursuit in
which we are interested, or for the object which we have attained.
So much of our opinion of the value of an object depends on the price
which others set upon it, that it is sufficient to know others are
indifferent to it for ourselves to undervalue it. But Marguerite went
forward in her career of happiness, quite ignorant of the dislike she
was leaving behind her. She told Frederick the truth, that she loved
Dumiger, and kindly added, that but for this circumstance she might
one day have loved him; and then with a light heart she left the
splendid palace for the abode of poverty.

They moved on together, those two young and loving beings, and so
intent were they on their own happiness, so concentrated in each
other, that they did not observe how the crowd through which they
passed fell back in admiration: but at last Dumiger caught the
expressions of their faces, and saw the glance which accompanied them,
and then he almost looked nobly born, so proud became his step and
steadfast his gaze. The long market (surrounded with its fantastic
gables, strange, rickety, and pictures