of these few weeks, she met them like a stranger.

The love which united her to the Emperor had raised her far above them.

Accustomed to give herself up entirely to the gifts which the present
offered, she had turned her back on Ratisbon and its inhabitants, with
whom, during this period of happiness she could easily dispense, as if
they were a forgotten world. There was no one in her native city whom
she seriously missed or to whom she was strongly drawn. That she, too,
offered these people little, and was of small importance, self-love had
never permitted her to realize, and therefore she felt an emotion of
painful surprise when she perceived the deep gulf which separated her
from her fellow-citizens of both sexes.

Now her old friends and acquaintances showed her plainly enough how
little they cared for her withdrawal.

Pretty Elspet Zohrer, with whom she had contended for the recruiting
officer, Pyramus Kogel, was standing opposite to her, by her partner's
side, in the same row with charming little Mietz Schiltl, Anne Mirl
Woller, her cousin, Marg Thun, and the others.

The Zauner, which they were dancing with a solemn dignity that aroused
the baron's mirth, afforded them an opportunity to look around them, and
they eagerly availed themselves of it; nay, they almost all glanced at
Barbara, and then, with evident intention, away from her, after Elspet
Zohrer, with a contemptuous elevation of her dainty little snub nose, had
ignored her schoolmate's greeting.

Barbara drew herself up, and the air of unapproachable dignity which she