went with her to walk or to church.

She avoided all intercourse with other visitors to the spring after
Ratisbon acquaintances had intentionally shunned her.

The Wollers' country residence, where she had formerly been a welcome
guest for weeks every summer, was near Abbach. Anne Mirl was betrothed,
and Nandl was on the eve of accepting a young suitor. Both were still
warmly attached to their cousin, although they had been told that, by an
open love intrigue, she had forfeited the right to visit the respectable
home of modest maidens. But the man who had honoured her with his love
was no less a personage than the Emperor Charles, and this circumstance
only increased the sympathy which the sisters felt for their much-admired
friend.

In spite of their mother's refusal to permit them to ride to the
neighbouring town and visit Barbara, they did so, that they might try
to comfort her; but though their unfortunate cousin received them and
listened to them a short time, she earnestly entreated them to obey
their mother and not come again.

Frau Traut perceived that she not only desired to guard the inexperienced
girls from trouble, but that their visit disturbed her. The thoughts
which were in her mind so completely absorbed her that she now studiously
sought the solitude which she had formerly shunned like a misfortune.

Even Pyramus Kogel's short letter, informing her of her father's
convalescence, and the news from the seat of war which Frau Traut
communicated to her to divert her thoughts, and which she had usually
anticipated with impatient expectation, awakened only a fleeting