he reckless
haste which perhaps had forever deprived her of the opportunity to show
the Emperor Charles her skill as a singer. The cruel anxiety which
tortured her on this account had urged her at Prufening to the loud
forwardness which hitherto she had always shunned. She had undoubtedly
noticed how deeply this had lowered her in Frau Kastenmayr's esteem, and
the discovery had been painful and wounded her vanity; but what did she
care now for her, for her brother, for all Ratisbon? She was riding
toward the great man who longed to see her, and to whom--she herself
scarcely knew whence she gained the courage--she felt that she belonged.

She had looked up to him as to a mountain peak whose jagged summit
touched the sky when her father and others had related his knightly
deeds, his victories over the most powerful foes, and his peerless
statesmanship. Only the day before yesterday she had listened to Wolf
with silent amazement when he told her of the countries and nations over
which this mightiest of monarchs reigned, and described the magnificence
of his palaces in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in Italy. Of the extent
of his wealth, and the silver fleets which constantly brought to him from
the New World treasures of the noble metal of unprecedented value,
Barbara had already heard many incredible things.

Yet, during this ride through the silent night, she did not even bestow
the lightest thought upon the riches of the man who was summoning her to
his side. The gold, the purple, the ermine, the gems, and all the other
splendours which she had seen, as if in a dream, hovering before her at
the first tidings that she was invited to sing before the Emperor
Charles, had vanished from her imagination.

She only longed to display her art before the greatest of men, whose
"entreaty" had intoxicated her with very different power from the Malmsey
at Herr Peter's table, and show herself worthy of his approval. That the
mightiest of the mighty could not escape pain seemed to her like a
mockery and a spiteful cruelty of Fate, and at the early mass that day
she had prayed fervently that Heaven might grant him recovery.

Now she believed that it was in her own hands to bring it to him.

How often had she been told that her singing possessed the power to cheer
saddened souls! Surely the magic of her art must exert a totally
different influence upon the man to whom her whole being attracted her
than upon the worthy folk here, for