"That is indeed true," the knight responded gravely. "The soul is a curious thing, and the kobolds can have little idea of what it is like. Indeed," he continued, after a moment's pause in which the others regarded him in wonder, "dost thou not suppose, Father, that a kobold might think he were better off for escaping a responsibility so heavy as that of a soul?" The priest looked at him in gentle reproof, while the Lady Adelaide again crossed herself with the air of being not a little scandalized. "Perhaps a kobold, who has no soul, might have such a thought," Father Christopher said; "but it is strange that it should come into Christian heads like ours, my son. It grieves me that thou shouldst harbor such fancies." "Nay," interposed Erna, softly, "I am sure our guest meant no harm. To beings so unhappy as not to know the glory of having a soul, very likely it has been kindly permitted not to realize how melancholy their case is. They are like the animals." The eyes of the knight were fixed on her face with an intense gaze of wistful longing, and had her earnestness been less she must have blushed under their fire. As it was, she remembered, after she had lain down upon her bed, the look which the baron bent upon her as she thus spoke in his behalf. She rose with the words, and after bidding the guest goodnight, withdrew with Lady Adelaide, leaving the priest to sit over the dying fire with the baron as long as suited their mutual pleasure. IV HOW HE REMAINED TO WOO. The stay of the Baron von Waldstein at the castle prolonged itself from day to day. At first there was the continued illness of the man-at-arms, which did not yield to the remedies of the leech as quickly as was to be expected; then there was one pretext after another; and in the end there was no pretext at all, save that the guest was loath to depart and the folk at Rittenberg wished him to remain. He was like a great, sunny, jovial comrade in the castle; and his presence seemed to change the whole atmosphere of the household. Before his coming the Lady Adelaide had seemed to be the dominant spirit because she most asserted herself. The gentle, quiet chatelaine, absorbed in the half-mystical contemplation which had been encouraged by the life she led and nourished upon the pious writings that formed her little library, had allowed the reins of government to rest undisturbed in the hands of her aunt; seldom interfering unless the matter were really serious. She was known among the few peasants that were scattered through the neighborhood as the "White Lady," and the charcoal-burners of the forest would almost have said their prayers to her with as much confidence and reverence as to the Holy Virgin herself, so pure and saintly did she seem to them.