ng-women whom she particularly disliked, and whose mulish face and
impertinent manners had often irritated her.

'Her Highness is waiting, Fraeuleinle von Graevenitz,' said this person,
while she treated Wilhelmine to an insolent stare.

'That has nothing to do with you,' answered Wilhelmine haughtily, her
ready anger flaring at the covert insolence of the woman's manner and the
familiar use of the word 'Fraeuleinle.' As she passed she caught a grin of
amusement on the woman's face. Ridicule from any one, but especially from
the 'canaille,' as she termed most of the inmates of this world, was a
thing which always raised the slumbering devil in Wilhelmine. She turned
abruptly, confronting the tiring-woman with that fixed evil glance of
hers. The smile died on the woman's lips, and she shrank back muttering.

'You will regret your insolence,' said Wilhelmine, thereby forging
another link in that chain of the witchcraft theory which was destined to
have such strange developments in her life and fate.

'I am accustomed to being attended immediately, Mademoiselle, when I send
for my ladies,' said the Duchess icily as Wilhelmine entered.

'Your Highness will pardon me; it was an unexpected summons, and I was
not dressed.'

'Ah! I suppose the so evidently recent attack of smallpox makes
Mademoiselle a little delicate still?' replied Johanna Elizabetha, with a
spiteful smile, and looking pointedly at her lady-in-waiting's face.

At this taunt, once more, though this time involuntarily, the snake look
came into Wilhelmine's eyes. Her Highness did not shrink, but returned
the gaze fully with a glance of quiet animosity. Johanna Elizabetha was a
brave woman, of good blood, and it is remarkable that, through all her
dealings with the Graevenitz, she never showed any of that fear, which to
arouse was one of this mysterious woman's most potent weapons. 'Would it
please you were I to give you permission to retire from court for a few
months, Mademoiselle, in order to recoup your damaged--er--health?' She
paused before the last word, and her adversary knew what she would have
said. The lady-in-waiting still had the strength to command the wave of
bitter anger which was surging within her, and she answered calmly:

'I thank your Highness for the offer; but,' here a note of insolent
triumph pierced through the studied courtesy of her manner, 'but I find
the climate of Stuttgart agrees vastly well with me, and I need no
change. You