'You have frightened my boy with your horrible stories!' she cried, and dragged the wailing Erbprinz towards the door; but he resisted manfully, crying that he would stay with the lovely lady. His granddame caught him, and bestowed a ringing box on his ear. The child raised a very tempest of sobs, and flinging off his mother's arm, fled howling towards Wilhelmine. Johanna Elizabetha, beyond herself with anger and disgust, horrified at the notion of the child being brought into contact with the woman she regarded as debased, rushed forward and, pulling the child violently away, she cried wildly-- 'Do not touch her; it is not fitting!' Eberhard Ludwig, who had been conscientiously conversing with the few guests, hurried up. 'What is this?' he asked angrily. 'Madame, why does your son howl like a beggar's brat?' The Duchess-mother came forward. 'A sorry spectacle, indeed,' she said grimly. 'The Landhofmeisterin, not being used to children, has frightened the Erbprinz.' 'Monseigneur,' broke in Wilhelmine, white to the lips, 'I crave permission to depart at once. I am not well.' 'Not well, Madame?' cried the Duke in an anxious tone; 'let me escort you immediately to your coach.' Wilhelmine bowed to the two Duchesses, but her salute remained unacknowledged. A petty social annoyance, a commonplace occurrence of disagreeable import, a moment's pique, have often brought about historic changes, the real cause whereof lies deep in the secret working of men's hearts and can only be understood by each one to himself. Thus in Wirtemberg's eighteenth-century record, the homely, unpleasant, trifling scene on Christmas Eve wrought a change in the history, destined to influence the affairs of the country for many years. The Graevenitz returned to the Jaegerhaus profoundly humiliated, deeply wounded. The Duchess-mother's remarks had been embarrassing and painful; each word as a finger of scorn pointed at that disgraceful bargain with Wuerben, at the recollection whereof Wilhelmine winced. But when Johanna Elizabetha snatched the Erbprinz away from her as though her very touch was contamination for the child, her whole being had shuddered with the ignominy. She knew herself to be accounted vile, one of the outcasts from whose proximity every virtuous woman must shrink and instinctively seek to protect all she loves, all she esteems pure. There is a terrible anguish to the outcast woman in this withdrawal from her of a child. Suddenly, she learns to measure her shame with a new gauge: by the lofty instinct of a mother's reverence for her child's fair innocence. Then the pariah realises that she is thrust beyond the pale of human purity. She has chosen the black mud of vice as her portion, and her presence reeks; she is tainted, and may not approach the pure.