"that you persuaded her to go; the pious
lamb knows how to use her horns fiercely enough."

"Oh, yes," Els assented, as if she knew it by experience; then she
eagerly continued, "She is still just like an April day."

"And therefore," Wolff remarked, "the dance which she began with tears
will end joyously enough. The young knights and nobles will gather round
her like bees about honey. Count von Montfort, my brother-in-law
Siebenburg says, is also at the Town Hall with his daughter."

"And the comet Cordula was followed, as usual, by a long train of
admirers," said Els. "My father was obliged to give the count lodgings;
it could not be avoided. The Emperor Rudolph had named him to the Council
among those who must be treated with special courtesy. So he was assigned
to us, and the whole suite of apartments in the back of the house,
overlooking the garden, is now filled with Montforts, Montfort household
officials, menservants, squires, pages, and chaplains. Montfort horses
and hounds crowd our good steeds out of their stalls. Besides the twenty
stabled here, eighteen were put in the brewery in the Hundsgasse, and
eight belong to Countess Cordula. Then the constant turmoil all day long
and until late at night! It is fortunate that they do not lodge with us
in the front of the house! It would be very bad for my mother!"

"Then you can rejoice over the departure all the more cordially,"
observed Wolff.

"It will hardly cause us much sorrow," Els admitted. "Yet the young
countess brings much merriment into our quiet house. She is certainly a
tireless madcap, and it will vex your proud sister Isabella to know that
your brother-in-law Siebenburg is one of her admirers. Did she not go to
the Town Hall?"

"No," Wolff answered; "the twins have changed her wonderfully. You saw
the dress my mother pressed upon her for the ball--Genoese velvet and
Venetian lace! Its cost would have bought a handsome house. She was
inclined, too, to appear as a young mother at the festival, and I assure
you that she looked fairly regal in the magnificent attire. But this
morning, after she had bathed the little boys, she changed her mind.
Though my mother, and even my grandmother, urged her to go, she insisted
that she belonged to the twins, and that some evil would befall the
little ones if she left them."

"That is noble!" cried Els in delight, "and if I should ever---. Yet no,
Isabella and I cannot be compared. My husband will never be numb