"Now, Baroness Anne," said she, "if that pretty thing be really worn as a sign of your rank, it is the only thing belonging to your dignity that I should ever think of coveting; for it doth shimmer and change colour after a most wonderful fashion, even something like one's own cheek when one is fluttered." "Alas, Annette!" said the Baroness, passing her hand across her eyes, "of all the gauds which the females of my house have owned, this perhaps hath been the most fatal to its possessors." "And why then wear it?" said Annette. "Why wear it now, of all days in the year?" "Because it best reminds me of my duty to my father and family. And now, girl, look thou sit with us at table, and leave not the apartment; and see thou fly not to and fro to help thyself or others with anything on the board, but remain quiet and seated till William helps you to what you have occasion for." "Well, that is a gentle fashion, which I like well enough," said Annette, "and William serves us so debonairly, that it is a joy to see him; yet, ever and anon, I feel as I were not Annette Veilchen herself, but only Annette Veilchen's picture, since I can neither rise, sit down, run about, nor stand still, without breaking some rule of courtly breeding. It is not so, I dare say, with you, who are always mannerly." "Less courtly than thou seemest to think," said the high-born maiden; "but I feel the restraint more on the greensward, and under heaven's free air, than when I undergo it closed within the walls of an apartment." "Ah, true--the dancing," said Annette; "that was something to be sorry for indeed." "But most am I sorry, Annette, that I cannot tell whether I act precisely right or wrong in seeing this young man, though it must be for the last time. Were my father to arrive?--Were Ital Schreckenwald to return"-- "Your father is too deeply engaged on some of his dark and mystic errands," said the flippant Swiss; "sailed to the mountains of the Brockenberg, where witches hold their sabbath, or gone on a hunting-party with the Wild Huntsman." "Fie, Annette, how dare you talk thus of my father?" "Why, I know little of him personally," said the damsel, "and you yourself do not know much more. And how should that be false which all men say is true?" "Why, fool, what do they say?" "Why, that the Count is a wizard,--that your grandmother was a will-of-wisp, and old Ital Schreckenwald a born devil incarnate; and there is some truth in that, whatever comes of the rest." "Where is he?" "Gone down to spend the night in the village, to see the Rhinegrave's men quartered, and keep them in some order, if possible; for the soldiers are disappointed of pay which they had been promised; and when this happens, nothing resembles a lanzknecht except a chafed bear." "Go we down then, girl; it is perhaps the last night which we may spend, for years, with a certain degree of freedom."