her not to make his foolish old head suffer for it. "If, after all, his
Majesty should desire to hear the choir that noon, it would only be
because----"

Here he hesitated, and then reluctantly made the admission--"Because you
yourself, you fair one, who turns everybody's bead, are the 'unusual'
something which our sovereign lord would fain hear once more, if the gout
does not----"

Then Barbara laughed gaily in her clear, bell like tones, seized the
clumsy Goliath's long, pointed beard, and played all sorts of pranks upon
him with such joyous mirth that, when she at last released him, he ran
after her like a young lover to catch her; but she had nimbler feet, and
he was far enough behind when she called from the threshold:

"I won't let myself be caught, but since your pretty white goat's beard
bewitches me, I'll be obliging to-day."

She laughingly kissed her hand to him from the doorway as she spoke, and
it seemed as though her yielding was to be instantly rewarded, for before
she left the house Chamberlain de Praet appeared to summon the choir to
the Golden Cross at one o'clock.

Barbara's head was proudly erect as she crossed the square. Wolf
followed her, and, on reaching home, found her engaged in a little
dispute with her father.

The latter had been much disgusted with himself for his complaisance the
day before. Although Wolf had come to escort Barbara to the Emperor's
lodgings, he had accompanied his child to the Golden Cross, where she was