unfortunate king.

Otto drove him completely out of the field, in part from his enthusiasm
for Christian the Second, but still more because it was the Kammerjunker
with whom he was contending. Sophie took Otto's side, her eye sparkled
applause, and the victory could not be other than his.

"What is it that the poet said of the fate of a king?" said Sophie.

"Woe's me for him
Who to the world shows more of ill than good!
The good each man ascribes unto himself,
Whilst on him only rest the crimes o' th' age."

"Had Christian been so fortunate as to have subdued the rebellious
nobles," continued Otto, "could he have carried out his bold plans, then
they would have called him Christian the Great: it is not the active
mind, but the failure in any design, which the world condemns."

Louise nevertheless took the side of the Kammerjunker, and therefore
these two went together up the aisle toward the tomb of the Glorup
family. Wilhelm and his mother were already gone out of the church.

"I envy you your eloquence!" said Sophie, and looked with an expression
of love into Otto's face; she bent herself over the railing around the
tomb, and looked thoughtfully upon the stone. Thoughts of love were
animated in Otto's soul.

"Intellect and heart!" exclaimed he, "must admire that which is great:
you possess both these!" He seized her hand.

A faint crimson passed over Sophie's cheeks. "The others are gone out!"
she said; "come, let us go up to the chancel."

"Up to the altar!" said Otto; "that is a bold course for one's whole
life!"

Sophie looked jestingly at him. "Do you see the monument there within
the pillars?" asked she after a short pause; "the lady with the crossed
arms and the colored countenance? In one night she danced twelve knights
to death, the thirteenth, whom she had invited for her partner, cut her
girdle in two in the dance and she fell dead to the earth!" [Author's
Note: In Thiele's Danish Popular Tradition it is related that she was
one Margrethe Skofgaard of Sanderumgaard, and that she died at a ball,
where she had danced to death twelve knights. The people relate it with
a variation as above; it is probable that it is mingled with a second
tradition, for example, that of the blood-spots at Koldinghuus, which
relates that an old king was so angry with his daughter that he resolved
to kill her, and ordered that his knights should dance with her one
after another un