and Sir Heinz approached, her heart beat so
loudly that she fancied her neighbours must hear it; but ere he had
spoken a single word old Burgrave Frederick himself greeted her,
inquired about her invalid mother, her blithe sister, and her aunt, the
abbess, who in her youth had been the queen of every dance, and asked if
she found his son a satisfactory partner.

It was an unusual distinction to be engaged in conversation by this
distinguished gentleman, yet Eva would fain have sent him far away, and
her replies must have sounded monosyllabic enough; but the sweet shyness
that overpowered her so well suited the modest young girl, who had
scarcely passed beyond childhood, that he did not leave her until the
'Rai' began, and then quitted her with the entreaty that she would
remove the cap which had hitherto rendered her invisible, to the injury
of knights and gentlemen, and be present at the dance which he should
soon give at the castle.

The pleasant old nobleman had scarcely left her when she turned towards
the young man who had just approached with the evident intention of
leading her to the dance, but he was again standing beside Cordula von
Montfort, and a feeling of keen resentment overpowered her.

The young countess was challenging his attention still more boldly,
tossing her head back so impetuously that the turban-like roll on her
hair, spite of the broad ribbon that fastened it under her chin, almost
fell on the floor. But her advances not only produced no effect, but
seemed to annoy the knight. What charm could he find in a girl who, in
a costume which displayed the greatest extreme of fashion, resembled
a Turk rather than a Christian woman? True, she had an aristocratic
bearing, and perhaps Els was right in saying that her strongly marked
features revealed a certain degree of kindliness, but she wholly lacked
the spell of feminine modesty. Her pleasant grey eyes and full red lips
seemed created only for laughter, and the plump outlines of her figure
were better suited to a matron than a maiden in her early girlhood. Not
the slightest defect escaped Eva during this inspection. Meanwhile she
remembered her own image in the mirror, and a smile of satisfaction
hovered round her red lips.

Now the knight bowed.

Was he inviting the countess to dance again? No, he turned his back to
her and approached Eva, whose lovely, childlike face brightened as if a
sun beam had shone upon it. The possibility of refusing h