nquer the great
anxiety which again and again took possession of her, she drank Herr
Peter's sweet Malmsey wine more recklessly than usual.

At last, more intoxicated by her own vivacity than by the juice of the
grape, she talked so loudly and freely with the other ladies and
gentlemen that it became too much even for Frau Kastenmayr, who had
glanced several times with sincere anxiety from her golden-haired
favourite to her brother, and then back to Barbara.

Such reckless forwardness ill beseemed a chaste Ratisbon maiden and the
future wife of a Peter Schlumperger, and she would gladly have urged
departure. But some of the city pipers had been sent to the forest, and
when they began to play, and Herr Peter himself invited the young people
to dance, her good humour wholly disappeared; for Barbara, whom the young
gentlemen eagerly sought, had devoted herself to dancing with such
passionate zest that at last her luxuriant hair became completely
loosened, and for several measures fluttered wildly around her. True, she
had instantly hastened deeper into the woods with Nandl Woller, her
cousin, to fasten it again, but the incident had most unpleasantly
wounded Frau Kastenmayr's strict sense of propriety.

Nothing unusual ought to happen to a girl of Barbara's age, and the
careless manner in which she treated what had befallen her before the
eyes of so many men angered the austere widow so deeply that she withdrew
a large share of her favour. This was the result of the continual
singing.

Any other girl would fasten her hair firmly and resist flying in the
dance from one man's arm to another's, especially in the presence of a
suitor who was in earnest, and who held aloof from these amusements of
youth.

Doubtless it was her duty to keep her brother from marriage with a girl
who, so long as her feet were moving in time to the violins and
clarionets, did not even bestow a single side glance upon her estimable
lover.

So her displeasure had caused the early departure.

Torch-bearers rode at the head of the tolerably long train of the
residents of Ratisbon, and some of the guests carried cressets. So there
was no lack of light, and as the lantern in her neighbour's hand
permitted the baron to recognise Barbara, Malfalconnet, according to the
agreement, rode up to the singer, while Wolf accosted Herr Peter
Schlumperger, and informed him of the invitation which the steward, in
the Emperor's name, was bringing his fair gues