nor'west moon; and they played pranks with each others' horses, and
mingled songs and choruses, and alternately remembered and forgot
the companion of their ride. Otto thus combined society and
solitude, hearkening now to their chattering and empty talk, now to
the voices of the encircling forest. The starlit dark, the faint
wood airs, the clank of the horse-shoes making broken music,
accorded together and attuned his mind. And he was still in a most
equal temper when the party reached the top of that long hill that
overlooks Mittwalden.

Down in the bottom of a bowl of forest, the lights of the little
formal town glittered in a pattern, street crossing street; away by
itself on the right, the palace was glowing like a factory.

Although he knew not Otto, one of the wood-merchants was a native of
the state. 'There,' said he, pointing to the palace with his whip,
'there is Jezebel's inn.'

'What, do you call it that?' cried another, laughing.

'Ay, that's what they call it,' returned the Grunewalder; and he
broke into a song, which the rest, as people well acquainted with
the words and air, instantly took up in chorus. Her Serene Highness
Amalia Seraphina, Princess of Grunewald, was the heroine, Gondremark
the hero of this ballad. Shame hissed in Otto's ears. He reined up
short and sat stunned in the saddle; and the singers continued to
descend the hill without him.

The song went to a rough, swashing, popular air; and long after the
words became inaudible the swing of the music, rising and falling,