ng the Prebrunn house. She need not
restrict herself on the score of expense; the Prebrunn steward would be
authorized to pay everything. True, most of the furniture was supplied
and the necessary servants had been obtained, but her Majesty the Queen
advised her to take with her a maid or companion whom she personally
liked.

Barbara's face crimsoned as she listened, and then asked anxiously
whether the Emperor Charles knew of these arrangements.

He had no doubt of it, the man replied, for he had heard his Majesty
remark that, if the marquise's companion was not to become the toy of her
caprices, she must be enabled to obtain what she desired independently of
the old lady. He was anxious to make Barbara's life in Prebrunn a
pleasant one.

The latter, with downcast eyes, thanked Master Adrian and turned away;
but he detained her with the inquiry whether he should probably find Sir
Wolf Hartschwert at home, and received the answer that he had gone to
Syndic Hiltner's.

The valet then hastily took his leave, because just at that time his
royal master needed him. Any one else could summon the knight to the
regent in his place.

In the corridor of the Golden Cross he met Brother Cassian, the body
servant of the Confessor de Soto, a middle-aged Swabian, who had formerly
as a lay brother worked as a bookbinder in the Dominican monastery at
Cologne. He was clad in a half-secular, half-priestly garb, and was an
humble, extremely devout man, whose yielding nature had rendered him
popular among the servants at the court. His bullet-shaped head was
unusually large, and his face, with its narrow brow and small, lustreless
eyes, showed that he was not prone to thinking. Yet he fulfilled every
order precisely according to directions, and possessed his full share of
the cunning which is often a characteristic of narrow minds.

He willingly undertook to summon Sir Wolf Hartschwert, whom he knew, to
the presence of the Queen of Hungary. No special haste was needful, and,
as he loved good wine and did not lack gifts from those who desired an
audience with his master, he went first to the English Greeting, where
the travelling clergy lodged and often deigned to accost him.

Barbara had returned home with bowed head, and threw herself into her
father's arm-chair in his workshop. She gazed into vacancy with a sore
and anxious heart, and, as an insane violinist lures the same tone from
the instrument again and again, she constantly r