“Shall I say nothing to Ursel?” asked the father, pressing a good-night kiss upon the young girl’s forehead.

“She would not care for it,” was the reply.  “It cannot be easy to forget a man like Wolff.”

“I wish he had stuck to Ursel, and let Els alone,” her father answered angrily.  “It would have been better for both.”

“Why, father,” interrupted Eva reproachfully, “do not our lovers seem really created for each other?”

“If the Eysvogels were only of the same opinion,” exclaimed Ernst Ortlieb, shrugging his shoulders with a faint sigh.  “Whoever marries, child, weds not only a man or a woman; all their kindred, unhappily, must be taken into the bargain.  However, Els did not lack earnest warning.  When your time comes, girl, your father will be more careful.”

Smiling tenderly, he passed his hand over the little cap which covered her thick, fair hair, and went out.

Eva returned to her room and sat down at the spinning-wheel in the bow window, where Katterle had just drawn the curtains closely and lighted the hanging lamp.  But the distaff remained untouched, and her thoughts wandered swiftly to the evening before and the ball at the Town Hall.  Heinz Schorlin’s image rose more and more distinctly before her mind, and this pleased her, for she fancied that he wore on his helm the blue favour which she had chosen, and it led her to consider against what foe she should first send him in the service of his lady and the Holy Church.

CHAPTER VI.

Eva had gazed into vacancy a long time, and beheld a succession of pleasing pictures, in every one of which, Heinz Schorlin appeared.  Once, in imagination, she placed a wreath on his helmet after a great victory over the infidels.

Why should not this vision become a reality?  Doubtless it owed its origin to a memory, for Wolff Eysvogel had been fired with love for her sister while Els was winding laurel around his helmet.

After the Honourable Council had resolved that the youths belonging to noble families, who had fought in the battle of Marchfield and returned victorious, should be adorned with wreaths by the maidens of their choice, Fate had appointed her sister to crown Eysvogel.

At that time Wolff had but recently recovered from the severe wounds with which he had returned from the campaign.  But while he knelt before Els and his eyes met hers, love had overmastered him so swiftly and powerfully, that at the end of a few days he determined to woo her.

Meanwhile his own family resolutely opposed his choice.  The father declared that he had made an agreement with Berthold Vorchtel to marry him to his daughter Ursula, and withdrawal on his son’s part would embarrass him.  His grandmother, the arrogant old Countess Rotterbach, agreed with him, and declared that Wolff ought to wed no one except a lady of the most aristocratic birth or an heiress like Ursula.  Her daughter Rosalinde Eysvogel, as usual, was the echo of her mother.