"Heralds!"

No one responded. So she filled the office of herald herself and cried
out:--

"Oyez! Oyez! The princess now gives audience!" Resuming the ducal voice,
she continued, "Are there complaints, my Lord Seneschal?" A pause. "Ah,
our guards have stolen Grion's cow, have they? The devil take Grion and
his cow, too! Hang Grion for complaining." A pause ensues while the duke
awaits the next report. "The Swiss have stolen a sheepskin? Ah, we'll
skin the Swiss. My Lord Seneschal, find me fifty thousand men who are
ready to die for a sheepskin. Body of me! A sheepskin! I do love
it well."

Yolanda's audience was roaring with laughter by this time, but her face
was stern and calm.

"Silence, you fools," she cried hoarsely, but no one was silent, and Max
laughed till the tears came to his eyes. Yolanda on her throne was so
irresistibly bewitching that he ran to her side, grasped her about the
waist, and unceremoniously lifted her to the floor. When she was on her
feet, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, saying:--

"Yolanda or Mary--it's all one to me. There is not another like you in
all the world."

She drew herself up haughtily: "Sir, this indignity shall cost you
dear," and turning her back on him she moved away three or four paces.
Then she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. His face had lost its
smile, and she knew the joke had gone far enough; so the dimples began