to stroke the boy's hair, but drew it back again.

Turning angrily upon the old woman, "Ursela," said he, "thou
must tell the child no more such stories as these; he knowest
not at all of such things as yet. Keep thy tongue busy with the
old woman's tales that he loves to hear thee tell, and leave it
with me to teach him what becometh a true knight and a Vuelph."

That night the father and son sat together beside the roaring
fire in the great ball. "Tell me, Otto," said the Baron, "dost
thou hate me for having done what Ursela told thee today that I
did?"

Otto looked for a while into his father's face. "I know not,"
said he at last, in his quaint, quiet voice, "but methinks that
I do not hate thee for it."

The Baron drew his bushy brows together until his eyes twinkled
out of the depths beneath them, then of a sudden he broke into a
great loud laugh, smiting his horny palm with a smack upon his
thigh.


VII.

The Red Cock Crows on Drachenhausen.

There was a new emperor in Germany who had come from a far away
Swiss castle; Count Rudolph of Hapsburg, a good, honest man with
a good, honest, homely face, but bringing with him a stern sense