ity. It is a grave blunder on the part of the grand duke.
There is a mote in his eye."

"Wasn't it all about the grand duke's daughter?"

"Yes. But she has been found. Yet the duke is as bitter as of old. He
is wrong, he was always wrong." The old man spoke with feeling. "What is
this new-found princess like?"

"She is beautiful and kind."

"So?"

The geese were behaving, and only occasionally was she obliged to use
her stick. And as her companion asked no more questions, she devoted her
attention to the flock, proud of their broad backs and full breasts.

On his part, he observed her critically, for he was more than curious
now, he was interested. She was not tall, but her lithe slenderness gave
her the appearance of tallness. Her hands, rough-nailed and sunburnt,
were small and shapely; the bare foot in the wooden shoe might have worn
without trouble Cinderella's magic slipper. Her clothes, coarse and
homespun, were clean and variously mended. Her hair, in a thick braid,
was the tone of the heart of a chestnut-bur, and her eyes were of that
mystifying hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, according to whether
the sky was clear or overcast. And there was something above and beyond
all these things, a modesty, a gentleness and a purity; none of the
bold, rollicking, knowing manner so common in handsome peasant girls. He
contemplated her through half-closed eyes and gave her in fancy the
tariffing furbelows of a woman of fashion; she would have been
beautiful.

"How old are you, Gretchen?"

"I do not know," she answered, "perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty."

Again they went forward in silence. By the time they reached the gates
the sun was no longer visible on the horizon, but it had gone down ruddy
and uncrowned by any cloud, giving promise of a fair day on the morrow.
The afterglow on the mountains across the valley was now in its prime
glory; and once the two wayfarers paused and commented upon it. Once
more the mountaineer was agreeably surprised; the average peasant is
impervious to atmospheric splendor, beauty carries no message.

Arriving at length in the city, they passed through the crooked streets,
sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft
some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray
backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely and serenely.

"Gretchen, where shall I find the Adlergasse?"

"We pass through it shortly. I will show y