Long consideration was foreign to Kuni’s nature.  While these thoughts were darting with the speed of lightning through her excited brain, she stripped from the garland, with the presence of mind which her calling teaches even in serious peril, the roses which might have caught her feet, and swung it in a wide circle above her.  Then nimbly, yet careful to maintain in every movement the grace without which the most difficult feat would have seemed to her valueless, she summoned all the strength and caution she possessed, went forward at a run, and—­she did not know herself just how it was done—­dared the leap over the rope once, twice, and the third and fourth time even accomplished the turn successfully.  It had not once cost her an effort to maintain her balance.

Again she saw Loni clapping his hands at the window, and the acclamations of the crowd, which echoed like peals of thunder from the lofty, gable-roofed houses, informed her that the boldness of the venture and the skill with which she had performed it were appreciated by these spectators.  True, she could not distinguish the voice of any individual, but she thought she knew that Lienhard was one of those who shouted “Bravo!” and clapped most loudly.  He must have perceived now that she was something more than a poor thief of a rosary, a useless bread-eater in the Schurstab household.

She straightened the garland again and, while preparing to take another run, repeat the feat, and, if her buoyancy held out, try to whirl around twice, which she had never failed to accomplish on the low rope, she could not resist the temptation of casting a hasty glance at Lienhard; she had never ascended to the steeple without looking at him.

Secure of herself, in the glad conciousness of success, she gazed down.

There sat the illustrious Maximilian, still clapping his hands.  Gratefully, yet with a passionate desire for fresh applause, the resolve to show him the very best which she could accomplish was strengthened.  But the next moment the blood faded from her slightly rouged cheeks, for Lienhard—­was it possible, was it imaginable?—­Lienhard Groland was not looking up at her!  Without moving his hands or vouchsafing her a single glance, he was gazing into the face of the little wearer of the laurel wreath, with whom he was eagerly talking.  He was under her thrall, body and soul.  Yet it could not be, she could not have seen distinctly.  She must look down once more, to correct the error.  She did so, and a torturing anguish seized her heart.  He was chatting with the child as before; nay, with still more warmth.  As he now saw nothing which was happening upon the rope, he had probably also failed to heed what she had performed, dared, accomplished, mainly for his sake, at the peril of her life, on the dizzy height.  His wife was still clapping her hands at his side, but Lienhard, as though deaf and blind to everything else, was gazing at the page which the miserable little elf was just giving him.  There was certainly writing on it—­perhaps a charm which rendered him subject to her.  How else could he have brought himself to overlook so unkindly herself and her art—­the best she had to bestow—­for the sake of this child?