the
beauty of the lady, for she was so exactly like the bride that she
might have been her twin-sister. The cavalier went up to the bride
courteously, saying, "Beautiful Rosa, I hope you will permit Conrad to
be present at your wedding. You are no longer vexed with the wild
thoughtless fellow who so nearly cost you a great sorrow?"

As the bride, the bridegroom, and Master Martin looked from one to
another in utter perplexity, the old Baron cried out, "Well, well!
suppose I must help you out of your dream. This is my son, Conrad, and
there is his beautiful wife, whose name is Rosa, the same as the
bride's. Remember, Master Martin, our conversation, when I asked you if
you would refuse to give me your Rosa even to my son. It had a special
purpose. The boy was over head and ears in love with your Rosa. He got
me persuaded to throw all consideration to the winds, and agree to act
as his mediator--his go-between. But when I told him how you had shown
me the door, he went and sneaked into your service in the most foolish
way, as a cooper, to gain Rosa's heart, with the view, as I suppose, of
carrying her off from you. Well! you cured him with that swinging blow
you gave him on the back, and thanks to you for that, inasmuch as he
has found a noble lady, who may perhaps be really the Rosa he had in
his heart from the beginning."

Meanwhile the lady had saluted the bride with the gentlest courtesy,
and placed round her neck a rich pearl-necklace, as a wedding-gift.

"Look, dear Rosa," she said, taking some withered flowers from amongst
the fresh ones she wore on her breast, "those are the flowers which you
once gave to my Conrad as a prize of victory. He kept them faithfully
till he saw me. But then he was false to you, and let me have them.
Don't be angry."

Rosa, blushing deeply, and casting her eyes modestly down, answered,
"Ah! my lady, how can you speak _so_? He never could have cared for
_me_, certainly. _You_ were his love alone; and because I happen to be
called Rosa, too, and am--as these gentlemen say--a little like you, he
made love to me, thinking all the time of you."

The procession was about to start for the second time, when a young
gentleman came in, dressed in the Italian fashion, all in slashed black
velvet, with a fine gold chain and a collar of rich lace.

"Oh, my Reinhold," cried Friedrich, and fell upon his neck; and the
bride and Master Martin, too, rejoiced, and cried out, "Here is our
beloved Re