“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—­Genoese velvet and Venetian lace!  Its cost would have bought a handsome house.  She was inclined, too, to appear as a young mother at the festival, and I assure you that she looked fairly regal in the magnificent attire.  But this morning, after she had bathed the little boys, she changed her mind.  Though my mother, and even my grandmother, urged her to go, she insisted that she belonged to the twins, and that some evil would befall the little ones if she left them.”

“That is noble!” cried Els in delight, “and if I should ever—–.  Yet no, Isabella and I cannot be compared.  My husband will never be numbered among the admirers of another woman, like your detestable brother-in-law.  Besides, he is wasting time with Cordula.  Her worldliness repels Eva, it is true, but I have heard many pleasant things about her.  Alas! she is a motherless girl, and her father is an old reveller and huntsman, who rejoices whenever she does any audacious act.  But he keeps his purse open to her, and she is kind-hearted and obliging to a degree——­”