e was no one in her native city whom she
seriously missed or to whom she was strongly drawn. That she, too,
offered these people little, and was of small importance, self-love had
never permitted her to realize, and therefore she felt an emotion of
painful surprise when she perceived the deep gulf which separated her
from her fellow-citizens of both sexes.

Now her old friends and acquaintances showed her plainly enough how
little they cared for her withdrawal.

Pretty Elspet Zohrer, with whom she had contended for the recruiting
officer, Pyramus Kogel, was standing opposite to her, by her partner's
side, in the same row with charming little Mietz Schiltl, Anne Mirl
Woller, her cousin, Marg Thun, and the others.

The Zauner, which they were dancing with a solemn dignity that aroused
the baron's mirth, afforded them an opportunity to look around them, and
they eagerly availed themselves of it; nay, they almost all glanced at
Barbara, and then, with evident intention, away from her, after Elspet
Zohrer, with a contemptuous elevation of her dainty little snub nose, had
ignored her schoolmate's greeting.

Barbara drew herself up, and the air of unapproachable dignity which she
assumed well suited the aristocratic gentleman at her side, whom every
one knew as the most brilliant, witty, and extravagant noble at the
Emperor's court. At the same time she addressed the baron, whom she had
hitherto kept at a distance, with unconstrained familiarity, and as the
eyes of the mothers also rested upon her, remarks which might have driven
the blood to her cheeks were made upon the intimate terms existing
between the "Emperor's sweetheart" and the profligate and spendthrift
Malfalconnet.

True, Barbara could not understand what they were saying, but it was easy
enough to perceive in what way they were talking about her.

Yet what gave these women the right to condemn her?

They bore her a grudge because she had distinguished herself by her art,
while their little geese were idle at home or, at most, busied themselves
in the kitchen, at the spinning wheel, in dancing, and whatever was
connected with it while waiting for their future husbands. The favour
which the most illustrious of mortals showed her they imputed to her as a
crime.

How could they know that she was more to the Emperor than the artist
whose singing enraptured him?

The girls yonder--her Woller cousins certainly--merely held aloof because
their mothers commande