You’ve already spoken of him, and I made his acquaintance in the Bear.  I learned many and many a piece of news from him about how things are going in the world-news, I tell you, girl!  My heart is fairly dancing in my body.  And, besides, a little puss like you is always glad to hear of an admirer, and only a short time ago you praised him loudly enough as a splendid dancer.  A downright good fellow, child, just as I was myself at his age.  An uncle of his, a captain of arquebusiers, Pyramus Kogel.”

Hitherto Barbara, with increasing displeasure, had only suspected whom her father meant; but when he now mentioned his new friend’s name, the indignant blood crimsoned her cheeks.

She had liked the handsome officer, for it was true that few men so well understood the art of guiding a partner through the dance; she, fool that she was, had made eyes at him in order not to let pretty Elspet Zohrer have the precedence.  But he had himself confessed how much farther he had entered the snare than she intended when, on her way home from Fran Lerch’s after her meeting with Wolf, the young officer had met her outside of the Grieb and sued for her hand.

Now the amorous swain had probably tried his luck with her father, and how the latter, in spite of poor Wolf and Herr Schlumperger, had treated him was evident from the fact that he, who usually closed his home against old friends, opened it wide to this stranger.

This was not only unpleasant to Barbara, but anger crimsoned her cheeks.

How dared the man whom she had so positively and sternly refused venture to continue his suit?  Since the Emperor had loved her, she felt raised infinitely above the poor nobleman.  Nay, she considered it a reprehensible impropriety that he still sought her.  And, besides what consequences the visit of so stately a ladykiller, whose unusual height rendered him easily recognised, might now entail upon her!  Suppose that he should meet a messenger from the Emperor on the stairs, or it should be rumoured at court that she received such visitors.  How quickly whatever happened in Ratisbon was noised abroad among the people she had just learned through the Woller girls.

The happiness which filled her was so great that everything which threatened to affect it, even remotely, alarmed her, and thus anxietv blended with indignation as, deeply agitated, she interrupted her father, and in the most unfilial manner reproached him for allowing the flattery of a boastful coxcomb to make him forget what he owned to her and her good name.

The brave champion of the faith dejectedly, almost humbly, strove to soothe her, and at least induce her not to offend his guest by unfriendly words; but she ignored his warnings with defiant passion, and when the recruiting officer, who had been detained some time on the staircase by the Wollers, knocked at the door, she shot the bolt noisily, calling to her father in a tone so loud that it could not fail to be heard outside:  “I repeat it, I will neither see nor speak to this importunate gentleman.  When he attacked me in the street at night, I thought I showed him plainly enough how I felt.  If he forces his way into our house now, receive him, for aught I care; you have a right to command here.  But if he undertakes to speak to me, he can wait for an answer till the day of judgment!”