e ventured, for his cheerfulness
and wit, his gift of story-telling, and sharp tongue often succeeded in
dispelling the clouds of melancholy from the brow of his imperial master.

At Wolf's entrance the baron greeted him with merry banter, and then
whispered to him that the regent was expecting him in her private room,
where the leaders of the newly arrived musicians had already gone. As
Wolf belonged to the "elect," he would conduct him to her Majesty before
"the called" who were here in the waiting room.

As he spoke he delivered him to the Emperor's confidential secretary,
Gastelu, whom Wolf had often aided in the translation of German letters,
and the latter ushered him into the Queen's reception room.

It was the royal lady's sleeping apartment, a moderately wide, unusually
deep chamber, looking out upon the Haidplatz. The walls were hung with
Flanders Gobelin tapestry, whose coloured pictures represented woodland
landscapes and hunters. The Queen's bed stood halfway down the long wall
at the right.

Little could be seen of her person, for heavy gold-embroidered damask
curtains hung around the wide, lofty bedstead, falling from the canopy
projecting, rootlike, above the top, where gilded child genii bore a
royal crown. On the side toward the room the curtains were drawn back far
enough to allow those who were permitted to approach the regent to see
her head and the upper portion of her body, which was wrapped in an
ermine cape.

She leaned in a sitting posture against a pile of white satin pillows,
and her thick locks, interwoven with strings of pearls, bore witness to
the skill of the maid who had combed and curled them so artistically and
adorned them with a heron's plume. Two beautiful English pointers and a
slender hound were moving about and sometimes disturbed the repose of the
two Wachtersbach badger dogs, who were trained to keep side by side
everywhere--in the room as well as in hunting. When the door opened they
only raised their sagacious little heads with a low growl.

The other living beings who had obtained admittance to the Queen's
chamber at so early an hour were constrained by etiquette to formal,
silent quiescence. Only the ladies in waiting and the chamberlains moved
to and fro unasked, but they also stepped lightly and graduated the depth
of the bow with which they greeted each individual to suit his or her
rank, while the pages used their nimble feet, whose tread silken shoes
rendered noi