smooth him with her trembling hand, whispered his name of "Festhold,"
and found him licking her hand, and wagging his long rough tail. And
he finally lay down at her feet, as though to protect her.

"Is it a sign that good angels will not let me be hurt?" she thought,
and, wearied out, she slept.



CHAPTER II: THE EYRIE



Christina Sorel awoke to a scene most unlike that which had been wont
to meet her eyes in her own little wainscoted chamber high in the
gabled front of her uncle's house. It was a time when the imperial
free towns of Germany had advanced nearly as far as those of Italy in
civilization, and had reached a point whence they retrograded
grievously during the Thirty Years' War, even to an extent that they
have never entirely recovered. The country immediately around them
shared the benefits of their civilization, and the free peasant-
proprietors lived in great ease and prosperity, in beautiful and
picturesque farmsteads, enjoying a careless abundance, and keeping
numerous rural or religious feasts, where old Teutonic mythological
observances had received a Christian colouring and adaptation.

In the mountains, or around the castles, it was usually very
different. The elective constitution of the empire, the frequent
change of dynasty, the many disputed successions, had combined to
render the sovereign authority uncertain and feeble, and it was