Expectation is ever a silent mood; and the meal continued; even the wine circulated without anything more being said, till at length a man dirty with hard riding through a country still wet with the storm of the preceding night, was brought in, with formal ceremony, by two of the Count's attendants, and led to the table at which he sat. The stranger seemed a simple messenger in the garb of peace, and in his hand he bore one of the large folded letters of the day, inscribed with innumerable titles then and still given to every German nobleman of rank, and sealed with a broad seal of yellow wax. "Who come you from?" demanded the Count, before he opened the letter which the messenger presented. "From the high and mighty prince, Count Frederick of Leiningen," replied the man; "who bade me bear this letter to the noble and excellent lord, the Count of Ehrenstein, his old and valued friend, and bring him back an answer speedily." "Ah! where is the Count?" exclaimed the lord of Ehrenstein; "when came he back? 'Tis many a year since we have met." "He stopped last night, noble Sir, at an abbey some ten miles beyond Zweibrücken, and he will reach that place this day," replied the messenger, answering only one of the Count's questions. "I pray you read the letter and let me have my answer." The Count cut the silk, and, unfolding the paper, read, while Seckendorf commented in a low tone, with words of admiration, but with something like a sneer upon his lip, at his lord's learning, which enabled him to gather easily the contents of what seemed a somewhat lengthy epistle.