“I believe, I fear that my foot is bleeding again,” she cried.  She slightly raised her robe, and lifted up her foot, that small object of wonder and rapture to all the lands of Europe.  Truly her white satin slipper was crimson, and blood was flowing freely from it.

A cry of horror sounded from every lip.  The gentlemen surrounded Barbarina, who lay pale as death upon the sofa, while Marietta knelt before her, and wrapped her foot in her handkerchief.  This was a striking scene.  A saloon furnished with princely splendor, and odorous with the rarest flowers; a group of cavaliers in their gold-embroidered coats and uniforms, glittering with crosses and odors; the signora lying upon the divan in a charming negligee, with her bleeding foot resting upon the lap of her sister.

“You are wounded, signora, you bleed!” cried the young Prince of Wurtemberg, with such an expression of horror, you would have thought he expected the instant death of the Barbarina.

The lovely Italian looked up in seeming surprise.  “Did not your highness know that I was wounded?  I thought you were a witness to my accident yesterday?”

“Certainly, I was at the opera-house, as were all these gentlemen; but what has that to do with your bleeding foot?”

“A curious question, indeed!  You did not, then, understand the cause of my swooning yesterday?  I will explain.  I felt a severe pain in the sole of my foot, which passed like an electric shock through my frame, and I became insensible.  While unconscious, my blood, of course, ceased to flow, and the physician did not discover the cause of my sudden illness.  This morning, in attempting to walk, I found the wound.”

“My God, what a misfortune, what an irreparable blow!” cried the cavaliers with one voice; “we can never again hope to see our enchanting dancer.”

“Compose yourselves, gentlemen,” cried Barbarina, smiling, “my confinement will be of short duration, and will have no evil consequences.  I stepped upon a piece of glass which had fallen upon the boards, and piercing the slipper entered my foot; the wound is not deep; it is a slight cut, and I shall be restored in a few days.”

“And now,” said Barbarina, with a triumphant smile, as she was once more alone with her sister, “no one will mock at me and make malicious comments upon my fainting.  In an hour the whole city will hear this history, and I hope it may reach the ears of the king.”

“He will not believe it,” said Marietta, shrugging her shoulders; “he sent immediately for your physician and questioned him closely as to your sudden indisposition in the theatre.  I had just left your boudoir to get you a glass of water, and when I returned I found the king standing before your door and listening to your groans.”

A wondrous expression of light and peace shone in her great black eyes.  “The king was then behind the curtains, he stood before my door, he wished to speak to me, and you tell me this now, only now, when you might have known—­” Barbarina paused, and turned away her blushing face.