It was now seventeen years since the Count and Countess had been united:  and although heaven had not blessed their couch with more than one child, it may be said of that one that it was a prize, and that surely never lighted on the earth a more delightful vision.  When Count Ludwig, hastening to the holy wars, had quitted his beloved godchild, he had left him a boy; he now found him, as the latter rushed into his arms, grown to be one of the finest young men in Germany:  tall and excessively graceful in proportion, with the blush of health mantling upon his cheek, that was likewise adorned with the first down of manhood, and with magnificent golden ringlets, such as a Rowland might envy, curling over his brow and his shoulders.  His eyes alternately beamed with the fire of daring, or melted with the moist glance of benevolence.  Well might a mother be proud of such a boy.  Well might the brave Ludwig exclaim, as he clasped the youth to his breast, “By St. Bugo of Katzenellenbogen, Otto, thou art fit to be one of Coeur de Lion’s grenadiers!” and it was the fact:  the “Childe” of Godesberg measured six feet three.

He was habited for the evening meal in the costly, though simple attire of the nobleman of the period—­and his costume a good deal resembled that of the old knight whose toilet we have just described; with the difference of color, however.  The pourpoint worn by young Otto of Godesberg was of blue, handsomely decorated with buttons of carved and embossed gold; his haut-de-chausses, or leggings, were of the stuff of Nanquin, then brought by the Lombard argosies at an immense price from China.  The neighboring country of Holland had supplied his wrists and bosom with the most costly laces; and thus attired, with an opera-hat placed on one side of his head, ornamented with a single flower, (that brilliant one, the tulip,) the boy rushed into his godfather’s dressing-room, and warned him that the banquet was ready.

It was indeed:  a frown had gathered on the dark brows of the Lady Theodora, and her bosom heaved with an emotion akin to indignation; for she feared lest the soups in the refectory and the splendid fish now smoking there were getting cold:  she feared not for herself, but for her lord’s sake.  “Godesberg,” whispered she to Count Ludwig, as trembling on his arm they descended from the drawing-room, “Godesberg is sadly changed of late.”

“By St. Bugo!” said the burly knight, starting, “these are the very words the barber spake.”

The lady heaved a sigh, and placed herself before the soup-tureen.  For some time the good Knight Ludwig of Hombourg was too much occupied in ladling out the forced-meat balls and rich calves’ head of which the delicious pottage was formed (in ladling them out, did we say? ay, marry, and in eating them, too,) to look at his brother-in-arms at the bottom of the table, where he sat with his son on his left hand, and the Baron Gottfried on his right.

The Margrave was indeed changed.  “By St. Bugo,” whispered Ludwig to the Countess, “your husband is as surly as a bear that hath been wounded o’ the head.”  Tears falling into her soup-plate were her only reply.  The soup, the turbot, the haunch of mutton, Count Ludwig remarked that the Margrave sent all away untasted.