still the baron remained proudly
drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing with hereditary inveteracy,
all the old family feuds; so that he was on ill terms with some of his
nearest neighbors, on account of disputes that had happened between
their great-great-grandfathers.

The baron had but one child, a daughter; but nature, when she grants but
one child, always compensates by making it a prodigy; and so it was with
the daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, and country cousins
assured her father that she had not her equal for beauty in all Germany;
and who should know better than they? She had, moreover, been brought up
with great care under the superintendence of two maiden aunts, who had
spent some years of their early life at one of the little German
courts, and were skilled in all branches of knowledge necessary to the
education of a fine lady. Under their instructions she became a miracle
of accomplishments. By the time she was eighteen, she could embroider to
admiration, and had worked whole histories of the saints in tapestry,
with such strength of expression in their countenances, that they looked
like so many souls in purgatory. She could read without great
difficulty, and had spelled her way through several church legends, and
almost all the chivalric wonders of the Heldenbuch. She had even made
considerable proficiency in writing; could sign her own name without
missing a letter, and so legibly, that her aunts could read it without
spectacles. She excelled in making little elegant good-for-nothing
lady-like nicknacks of all kinds; was versed in the most abstruse
dancing of the day; played a number of airs on the harp and guitar; and
knew all the tender ballads of the Minnelieders by heart.

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes in their younger
days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guardians and strict
censors of the conduct of their niece; for there is no duenna so rigidly
prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a superannuated coquette. She was
rarely suffered out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the
castle, unless well attended, or rather well watched; had continual
lectures read to her about strict decorum and implicit obedience; and,
as to the men--pah!--she was taught to hold them at such a distance, and
in such absolute distrust, that, unless properly authorized, she would
not have cast a glance upon the handsomest cavalier in the world--no,
not if h