just at this time, and without having informed his Majesty whose voice
had with reason aroused his delight, would be felt even by a gentler
woman as an injury.

Appenzelder could not help admitting this, and then dejectedly promised
Barbara to make amends as soon as possible for the wrong which the
regent, much against his will, had committed.

He was compelled to use all the power of persuasion at his command to
keep her in the boy choir, at least until the poisoned members could be
employed again, for she threatened seriously to withdraw her aid in
future.

Wolf, too, had a difficult position with the girl whom his persuasion had
induced to enter the choir. What Appenzelder ascribed to the devil
himself, he attributed merely to the fervour of her fiery artist
temperament. Yet her vehement outburst of wrath had startled him also,
and a doubt arose in his mind as to what matrimonial life might be with
a companion who, in spite of her youth, ventured to oppose elderly,
dignified men so irritably and sharply. But at the very next song which
had greeted him from her rosy lips this scruple was forgotten. With
sparkling eyes he assented to Gombert's protestation that, in her wrath,
she had resembled the goddess Nemesis, and looked more beautiful than
ever.

In spite of his gray hair, she seemed to have bewitched the great
musician, like so many other men, and this only enhanced her value in
Wolf's sight.

Urgently, nay, almost humbly, he at last entreated her to have patience,