her voice?"

"I think so," replied Wolf in an embarrassed tone.

"Wonderfully beautiful and very aristocratic," said the baron, completing
the sentence, and raising the tips of his slender fingers to his lips.

But this gesture seemed to displease his master, for he turned from him,
and, looking the young Ratisbon knight keenly in the face, asked
suspiciously, "She is full of caprices--I am probably right there also
--and consequently refuses to sing?"

"Pardon me, your Majesty," replied Wolf eagerly. "If I understand her
feelings, she had hoped to earn your Majesty's approval, and when she
received no other summons, nay, when your Majesty for the second time
countermanded your wish to hear the boy choir, she feared that her art
had found no favour in your Majesty's trained ears, and, wounded and
disheartened--"

"Nonsense!" the Emperor broke in wrathfully. "The contrary is true.
The Queen of Hungary was commissioned to assure the supposed boy of my
approval. Tell her this, Sir Wolf Hartschwert, and do so at once. Tell
her--"

"She rode to the forest with some friends," Wolf timidly ventured to
interpose to save himself other orders impossible to execute. "If she
has not returned home, it might be difficult--"

"Whether difficult or easy, you will find her," Charles interrupted.
"Then, with a greeting from her warmest admirer, Charles, the music