g the whole extent of
the vegetable garden, so that the cords of it went right away over the
village and into the wood beyond, where they were made fast to sturdy
trees.

As soon as this marquee was ready, Baron Porphyrio came down with Herr
Dapsul from the astronomical tower, after profuse embraces resumed his
seat in the coach and eight, and in the same order in which they had
made their entry into Dapsulheim, he and his following went into the
silken palace, which, when the last of the procession was within it,
instantly closed itself up.

Fraeulein Aennchen had never seen her papa as he was then. The very
faintest trace of the melancholy which had hitherto always so
distressed him had completely disappeared from his countenance. One
would really almost have said he smiled. There was a sublimity about
his facial expression such as sometimes indicates that some great and
unexpected happiness has come upon a person. He led his daughter by the
hand in silence into the house, embraced her three times consecutively,
and then broke out--

"Fortunate Anna! Thrice happy girl! Fortunate father! Oh, daughter, all
sorrow and melancholy, all solicitude and misgiving are over for ever!
Yours is a fate such as falls to the lot of few mortals. This Baron
Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, otherwise known as Cordovanspitz, is by no
means a hostile gnome, although he is descended from one of those
elementary spirits who, however, was so fortunate as to purify his
nature by the teaching of Oromasis the Salamander. The love of this
being was bestowed upon a daughter of the human race, with whom he
formed a union, and became founder of the most illustrious family whose
name ever adorned a parchment. I have an impression that I told you
before, beloved daughter Anna, that the pupil of the great Salamander
Oromasis, the noble gnome Tsilmenech (a Chaldean name, which
interpreted into our language has a somewhat similar significance to
our word 'Thickhead'), bestowed his affection on the celebrated
Magdalena de la Croix, abbess of a convent at Cordova in Spain, and
lived in happy wedlock with her for nearly thirty years. And a
descendant of the sublime family of higher intelligences which sprung
from this union is our dear Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, who has
adopted the sobriquet of Cordovanspitz to indicate his ancestral
connection with Cordova in Spain, and to distinguish himself by it from
a more haughty but less worthy collateral lin