Yes, the woman said, there was a bit of walled-off land, but it did not belong to them. There was a gate, and they had not the key. Perhaps there was a grave there; the grass grew so high you could not tell. She led her visitor through the neglected garden which Spring, the glorious gardener, had yet made fair with blossom and the budding lilac. The Graevenitz peered through the bars of the graveyard gate. Ah, thank God! who sends Spring to garnish the graves of the forgotten dead! The tombs were hidden by a fair coronal of waving grasses, and the redthorns above made a baldaquin more beautiful than the work of man's hand. 'Forgotten, yet so peaceful,' she murmured as she turned away. 'Did you speak, lady?' said the peasant woman; but the Graevenitz shook her head. 'Only to myself; only to myself always now,' she answered. At Tuebingen no one paid heed to the traveller, but she did not venture up to the castle. She might have dared it, for none would have remembered her, or recognised in the tall, white-haired woman the beautiful young courtesan who had held mock court in the ancient university castle. She learned that no Duke had resided there for many years, it was entirely given up to the students and their grave professors. 'But the state-rooms? I heard that there were fine apartments in the castle, where princes and their courts held high revel?' she queried of the innkeeper. 'Eh! all those are dismantled now, Madame,' returned the man. Dismantled--the word rang in her ears. Yes; the very scenes of her glorious past were changed. Through the shadowy Tuebingen forest she journeyed onwards. She commanded her driver to turn aside before Stuttgart, and thus she passed along by-roads to Ludwigsburg. The sun was still high in the heavens when she entered the well-remembered avenue of shady chestnut-trees. Here too Spring had been busy, crowning the trees with bloom. A regal decoration for her home-coming, she thought. At the stately town-gate her coach halted, and for the first time in her life she paid toll upon entering Ludwigsburg. Her eyes sought the monogram sculptured on the stone gate-pillars: 'E. L.' entwined in graceful curves on a rounded shield upheld by playful amorini. How well she remembered when Frisoni had brought her the drawings for this device. Would her Excellency wish her chiffre to appear in the design? the Italian had asked, and she had rejected the proposal, she hardly knew why. Her coach lumbered down the Ludwigsburg street. It was in a deplorable condition, and the heavy carriage jolted and swung from side to side. The houses which bordered one side of the street were closed and shuttered, and their blank windows seemed like sightless yet imploring eyes gazing towards the deserted palace gardens.