suckenie, in which she went to the ball, were anything but tears of joy."

[Suckenie--A long garment, fitting the upper part of the body
closely and widening very much below the waist, with openings for
the arms.]

"I only wonder," added Wolff, "that you persuaded her to go; the pious
lamb knows how to use her horns fiercely enough."

"Oh, yes," Els assented, as if she knew it by experience; then she
eagerly continued, "She is still just like an April day."

"And therefore," Wolff remarked, "the dance which she began with tears
will end joyously enough. The young knights and nobles will gather round
her like bees about honey. Count von Montfort, my brother-in-law
Siebenburg says, is also at the Town Hall with his daughter."

"And the comet Cordula was followed, as usual, by a long train of
admirers," said Els. "My father was obliged to give the count lodgings;
it could not be avoided. The Emperor Rudolph had named him to the
Council among those who must be treated with special courtesy. So he was
assigned to us, and the whole suite of apartments in the back of the
house, overlooking the garden, is now filled with Montforts, Montfort
household officials, menservants, squires, pages, and chaplains.
Montfort horses and hounds crowd our good steeds out of their stalls.
Besides the twenty stabled here, eighteen were put in the brewery in the
Hundsgasse, and eight belong to Countess Cordula. Then the constant
turmoil all day long and until late at night! It is fortunate that they
do not lodge with us in the front of the house! It would be very bad for
my mother!"