nd; but
one evening a large party of noblemen chanced to be assembled at the
schloss, and putting their heads together, they decided to press matters
to a conclusion. They agreed that all of them, in gorgeous raiment,
should gather in the banqueting-hall of the castle; the seven sisters
should be summoned and called upon in peremptory fashion to have done
with silken dalliance and to end matters by selecting seven husbands
from among them. The young ladies received the summons with some
amusement, all of them being blessed with the saving grace of humour,
and they bade the knight who had brought the message return to his
fellows and tell them that the suggested interview would be held. "Only
give us time," said the sisters, "for the donning of our most becoming
dresses."

So now the band of suitors mustered, and a brave display they made, each
of them thinking himself more handsome and gorgeous than his neighbours
and boasting that he would be among the chosen seven. But as time sped
on and the ladies still tarried, the young men began to grow anxious;
many of them spoke aloud of female vanity, and made derisive comments
on the coiffing and the like, which they imagined was the cause of
the delay; eventually one of their number, tired of strutting before
a mirror, happened to go to look out of the window toward the Rhine.
Suddenly he uttered a loud imprecation, and his companions, thronging to
the window, were all fiercely incensed at the sight which greeted their
eyes. For the famous seven sisters were perpetrating something of
a practical joke; they were leaving the castle in a boat, and on
perceiving the men's faces at the windows they gave vent to a loud laugh
of disdain. Hardly had the angry suitors realized that they were the
butt of the ladies' ridicule when they were seized with consternation.
For one of the sisters, in the attempt to shake her fist at the men
she affected to despise, tried to stand up on one of the thwarts of the
boat, which, being a light craft, was upset at once. The girls' taunts
were now changed to loud cries for help, none being able to swim; but
ere another boat could be launched the Rhine had claimed its prey, and
the perfidious damsels were drowned in the swift tide.

But their memory was not destined to be erased from the traditions of
the locality. Near the place where the tragedy occurred there are seven
rocks, visible only on rare occasions when the river is very low, and
till lat