comes a good Nuremberg wife, the
excess of angelic virtue will vanish; and if I had a brother--in serious
earnest--I would send him to your Eva."

"And," cried Els, "however quickly her mood changes, it will surely do
her no harm. But as yet she cares nothing about you men. I know her, and
the tears she shed when our father gave her the costly Milan suckenie,
in which she went to the ball, were anything but tears of joy."

[Suckenie--A long garment, fitting the upper part of the body
closely and widening very much below the waist, with openings for
the arms.]

"I only wonder," added Wolff, "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