ed up to them, saying: "His Gracious
Highness has ordered me to admit you two gentlemen, the audience will
then be at an end."

"Come," said the physician to the young man, "answer boldly. The Prince
likes straightforward people." They entered the audience chamber,
leaving the Parson and his companion to retire grumbling.

CHAPTER II.

In a room of moderate height, panelled in oak, but with broad
round-paned windows, stood the Kurfuerst Frederic III. near an open
writing-table ornamented with inlaid work and richly adorned with
appropriate mottoes and allegorical figures. A Dutch stove of coarse
German manufacture, representing the world's history from the time of
Adam and Eve to that of the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I., offered
a solid support to that stout gentleman. Pigavetta bowed deeply and
said to the Prince: "I introduce to Your Highness the young artist,
whom Your Highness empowered me to invite."

A short, thick-set asthmatic figure stept forward towards the young
man. A plate-like ruffle surrounded that part of the body known in
other men as the neck, but out of this arose a firm, honest face with a
fair beard. The smallish features were enlivened by a pair of clear
blue eyes, whose gaze a man willingly met. Honesty, truth, and a clear
conscience were all more plainly expressed on the features of this
short sturdy man than mental aptitude or quickness of thought.

Near the window stood, attired in a dark Spanish costume, the court
physician Thomas Liebler, surnamed Erastus, at that time the most
influential man in the Palatinate, whose intervention in church matters
was not welcomed by the theologians of the town.

"You are well recommended to me, Master Laurenzano," said the Count
Palatine in a kindly tone to the young man, pointing at the same time
to plans, accounts, and statements piled up before him. "Master Colins
considers you in the light of a second Michel Angelo. You are an
artist, sculptor and architect, and your black eyes tell me that you
are also a poet."

"He who will build, most gracious Lord," answered the young man in
broken German, to the evident amusement of the Prince, "must also be
able to draw and chisel. In my own country I should not consider myself
an architect, did I not understand both."

"Well spoken, young man, and you shall have an opportunity here of
doing both. When I succeeded to the throne, I found empty coffers, and
instea