perb gold ornaments; at his left was a maiden of
extremely peculiar charm. According to years she was still a child, but
her delicate, mobile features had a mature expression, which sometimes
gave her a precocious air of superiority. The cut of her white robe and
the little laurel wreath on her brown curls reminded Kuni of the pagan
Genius on an ancient work of marble which she had seen in Verona.
Neither the girl's age nor her light, airy costume harmonized with her
surroundings; for the maids and matrons near her were all far beyond
childhood, and wore the richest holiday costumes of heavy brocades and
velvets. The huge puffs on the upper part of the sleeves touched the
cheeks of many of the wearers, and the lace ruffs on the stiff collars
rendered it easy, it is true, to maintain their aristocratic, haughty
dignity, but prevented any free, swift movement.

The young girl who, as Kuni afterward learned, was the daughter of
Conrad Peutinger, of Augsburg, whom she had again seen that day in The
Blue Pike, was then eleven years old. She was sometimes thought to
be fifteen or even sixteen; her mobile face did not retain the same
expression a single instant. When the smile which gave her a childlike
appearance vanished, and any earnest feeling stirred her soul, she
really resembled a mature maiden. What a brilliant, versatile intellect
must animate this remarkable creature! Lienhard, shrewd and highly
educated as he was, seemed to be completely absorbed in his neighbour;
nay, in his animated conversation with her he entirely forgot the
beautiful wife at his side; at least, while Kuni looked down at him,
he did not bestow a single glance upon her. Now he shook his finger
mischievously at the child, but he seemed to be seeking, in mingled
amusement and perplexity, to find a fitting answer. And how brightly
Lienhard's eyes sparkled as he fairly hung upon the sweet red lips
of the little marvel at his left--the heart side! A few minutes had
sufficed to show the ropedancer all this, and suggest the question
whether it was possible that the most faithful of husbands would thus
basely neglect, for the sake of a child, the young wife whom he had won
in spite of the hardest obstacles, on whose account he had so coldly and
cruelly rejected her, the object of so much wooing, and who, this very
day, was the fairest of all the beautiful ladies who surrounded her.

In an instant her active mind transported her to the soul of the
hither