'_I_ hard and cold and cruel?' she replied incredulously. 'Do they say that?' She had no idea that success and prosperity had thus changed her; the world-hardened never know it themselves. 'Ah, yes, they say that; but, I pray you, have mercy on me.' The poor, distorted figure threw itself down, grovelling at the Landhofmeisterin's feet. 'Go to my apartments in the pavilion and await me, I will attend to you in an hour's time. Stay, here is my ring; show that to the sentry and he will admit you,' she said. She would send him back to his Swiss mountain valley with gold enough to last him for his lifetime. Perhaps, if she did good to this outcast, God would relent, would give her back Eberhard Ludwig's love? The dwarf went, and the Landhofmeisterin turned her attention to the scene in the banqueting-hall. The banquet was finished, but the guests still sat round the table with wine-reddened faces. The Prussian King loved to drink deep; he said he abhorred the milksop who could not follow him to the dregs of a tankard, and that was indeed no paltry measure. The Erbprincessin sat to the King's right, his Highness himself was on his Majesty's left. The Erbprinz, white and weary, sat opposite. The holders of important court charges were grouped around according to their respective ranks. Friedrich Graevenitz, as Count of the Empire and Prime Minister of Wirtemberg, sat to the left of Serenissimus; Prelate Osiander came next, then Schuetz and Sittmann, and the brothers Pfau. Reischach, the Master of the Hunt; Baron Roeder, Master of the Horse; the Oberhofmarshall, the other Geheimraethe; the generals and officers of his Highness's staff; the colonels of the Silver Guard, of the Chevaliergarde; the young captain of the Cadets a Cheval. Among the Wirtemberg courtiers were seated various members of the Prussian suite: Grumbkow, the powerful favourite; General Doenhoff; and the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin, Count Seckendorff, who always followed Friedrich Wilhelm I., a spy and intriguer in friendship's guise.