Perhaps the feelings of the English might have been soothed if they had seen the welcome given their princess by the emperor in his palace of Heidelberg, and his admiration of her beauty. She touched his heart by her modesty and unselfishness, and he felt he had done well in choosing his son's wife. Blanche was grateful for his kindness, and soon loved him and her husband dearly, while she was never tired of standing at the windows of the castle, whose ruins you may see to-day, looking over the broad Rhine and the vine-clad mountains. Here she had more time for reading, too, as there were no great Court ceremonies that needed her presence, and her husband would tell her tales of bygone emperors, and teach her how to speak his native tongue, which she found much more difficult than French. 'How _can_ I remember all those different endings?' she cried, 'and by the time I come to the verb, I have quite forgotten what I was going to say! and Lewis—who bade her call him 'Ludwig'—would laugh, and relate to her the brave deeds of Henry the Fowler, or recite some verses of the 'Lay of the Nibelungs,' till Blanche would stop her ears at the cruelties of Brunhilda and Chriemhild. Or if the days were fine the husband and wife would go out together, and visit some church or citizen's house that was being built, and Lewis, who had much skill in these things, would show Blanche the wonderful carving or bid her mark the fine proportions of the architecture. Blanche—the 'electoral princess'—would have liked to stay in Heidelberg, but after awhile she was obliged to leave Cologne to go to Alsace, and preside over a Court again. She always did what came in her way pleasantly and graciously, but she was very sorry to give up her happy life, with its books and music and church-building, and pass her time in public ceremonies, even though the little Court of Alsace was much quieter and more homely than that of either Richard II. or her own father. But the climate did not agree with her, and as she grew older she also grew more delicate. This she managed to conceal from her husband who was busy with many things, fearing to distress him, and she kept gay words and a smile for everyone as long as she possibly could. But at length she grew too weak to ride or walk, and by-and-by lay amongst pillows at her window gazing at the mountains, and now and then saying a word to her husband, who never left her when he could help it. One day, early in May, when the birds were singing and the streams gurgling, he returned from a long journey to find Blanche lying with a little son beside her and a look of rapture on her face.