was to witness her difficult undertaking. She felt like a leader who
takes the field with a scanty band of soldiers and is unexpectedly
joined by the troops of a firm friend.





CHAPTER XVII

When Arnold, the warder from Berne, helped Eva from the saddle, a blaze
of light greeted her from the imperial residence. The banquet was just
beginning.

Frau Gertrude had more than one piece of good news to tell while
assisting the young girl. Among the sovereign's guests was her uncle
the magistrate, who had accompanied the Emperor to the beekeeper's,
and with his wife, whom she would also find there, had been invited to
the banquet. Besides--this, as the best, she told her last--her father,
Herr Ernst Ortlieb, had returned from Ulm and Augsburg, and a short time
before had come to the fortress to conduct Jungfrau Els, by the
Burgrave's gracious permission, to her betrothed husband's hiding place.
Fran Gertrude had lighted her way, and a long separation might be borne
for such a meeting.

The ex-maid was obliged to bestir herself that Eva might have a few
minutes for her sister and Wolff, yet she would fain have spent a much
longer time over the long, thick, fair hair, which with increasing
pleasure she combed until it flowed in beautiful waving tresses over the
rich Florentine stuff of her plain white mourning robe.