ance she had allowed Katterle and her sister to adorn
her, and entered the sedan chair which was to convey her to the Town
Hall. Doubtless her own image, reflected in the mirror, had seemed
charming enough, and the loud expressions of delight from the servants
and others who admired her rich costume had pleased her; but directly
after she realized the vanity of this emotion and, while approaching the
ballroom in her chair, she prayed to her saint to help her conquer it.

Striving honestly to vanquish this error, she entered the hall soon
after the Emperor and his young daughter-in-law; but there she was
greeted from the balcony occupied by the city pipers and musicians,
long before Biberli entered it, with the same fanfare that welcomed the
illustrious guests of the city, and with which blended the blare of
the heralds' trumpets. Thousands of candles in the chandeliers and
candelabra diffused a radiance as brilliant as that of day and, confused
by the noise and waves of light which surged around her, she had drawn
closer to her father, clinging to him for protection. She especially
missed her sister, with whom she had grown up, who had become her second
self, and whom she needed most when she emerged from her quiet life of
introspection into the gay world.

At first she had stood with downcast lashes, but soon her eyes wandered
over the waving plumes and flashing jewels, the splendour of silk and
velvet, the glitter of gold and glimmer of pearls.

Sometimes the display in church had been scarcely less brilliant, and
even without her sister's request she had gazed at it, but how entirely
different it was! There she had rejoiced in her own modest garb, and
told herself that her simplicity was more pleasing to God and the saints
than the vain splendour of the others, which she might so easily have
imitated or even surpassed. But here the anxious question of how she
appeared among the rest of the company forced itself upon her.

True, she knew that the brocade suckenie, which her father had ordered
from Milan, was costly; that the sea-green hue of the right side
harmonised admirably with the white on the left; that the tendrils and
lilies of the valley wrought in silver, which seemed to be scattered
over the whole, looked light and airy; yet she could not shake off the
feeling that everything she wore was in disorder--here something was
pulled awry, there something was crushed. Els, who had attended to
her whole toilet,