hakespeare,
a Goethe, a Tieck, or a Jean Paul Richter--would run a decided risk of
being beaten out of the field by any sufficiently well put-together
lieutenant of hussars in uniform, if he took it in his head to pay his
addresses to one of them. Now in Fraeulein Aennchen's case it was a
different matter altogether. It was neither good looks nor cleverness
that were in question; but it is not exactly every day that a poor
country lady becomes a queen all in a moment, and accordingly it was
not very likely that Herr Dapsul should hit upon the cause which had
been operating, particularly as the very stars had left him in the
lurch.

As may be supposed, those three, Herr Porphyrio, Herr Dapsul and
Fraeulein Aennchen, were one heart and one soul. This went so far that
Herr Dapsul left his tower oftener than he had ever been known to do
before, to chat with his much-prized son-in-law on all sorts of
agreeable subjects; and not only this, but he now regularly took his
breakfast in the house. About this hour, too, Herr Porphyrio was wont
to come forth from his silken palace, and eat a good share of Fraeulein
Aennchen's bread and butter.

"Ah, ah!" she would often whisper softly in his ear, "if papa only knew
that you are a real king, dearest Cordovanspitz!"

"Be still, oh heart! Melt not away in rapture," Daucus Carota the First
would say. "Near, near is the joyful day!"

It chanced that the schoolmaster had sent Fraeulein Aennchen a present
of some of the finest radishes from his garden. She was particularly
pleased at this, as Herr Dapsul was very fond of radishes, and she
could not get anything from the vegetable garden because it was covered
by the silk marquee. Besides this, it now occurred to her for the first
time that, among all the roots and vegetables she had seen in the
palace, radishes were conspicuous by their absence.

So she speedily cleaned them and served them up for her father's
breakfast. He had ruthlessly shorn several of them of their leafy
crowns, dipped them in salt, and eaten them with much relish, when
Cordovanspitz came in.

"Oh, my Ockerodastes," Herr Dapsul called to him, "are you fond of
radishes?"

There was still a particularly fine and beautiful radish on the dish.
But the moment Cordovanspitz saw it his eves gleamed with fury, and he
cried in a resonant voice--

"What, unworthy duke, do you dare to appear in my presence again, and
to force your way, with the coolest of audacity, int