Now Sidonia, who had only learned the Lutheran Catechism, did not understand the question in this form out of the Gerschovian Catechism, and remained silent.

"What!" said the doctor, "not know my brother's catechism! You must get one directly from the court bookseller -the Catechism of Doctor Timothy Gerschovius-and have it learned by next Sunday." Then turning to Clara, he repeated the question, and she, having answered, received great praise.

Now it happened that just at this time the ducal horse were led up to the horse-pond to water, and all the young pages and knights were gathered in a group under the window of her Grace's apartment, laughing and jesting merrily. So Sidonia looked out at them, which the doctor no sooner perceived than he slapped her on the hand with the catechism, exclaiming, "What! have you not heard just now that all sinful desires are forbidden by the seventh commandment, and yet you look forth upon the young men from the window? Tell me what are sinful desires?"

But the proud girl grew red with indignation, and cried, "Do you dare to strike me?" Then, turning to her Grace, she said, "Madam, that sour old priest has struck me on the fingers. I will not suffer this. My father shall hear of it."

Hereupon her Grace, and even the doctor, tried to appease her, but in vain, and she ran crying from the apartment. In the corridor she met the old treasurer, Jacob Zitsewitz, who hated the doctor and all his rigid doctrines. So she complained of the treatment which she had received, and pressed his hand and stroked his beard, saying, would he permit a castle and land dowered maiden to be scolded and insulted by an old parson because she looked out at a window? That was worse than in the days of Popery. Now Zitsewitz, who had a little wine in his head, on hearing this, ran in great wrath to the apartment of her Grace, where soon a great uproar was heard.

For the treasurer, in the heat of his remonstrance with the priest, struck a little table violently which stood near him, and overthrew it. On this had lain the superb escritoire of her Highness, made of Venetian glass, in which the ducal arms were painted; and also the magnificent album of her deceased lord, Duke Philip. The escritoire was broken, the ink poured forth upon the album, from thence ran down to the costly Persian carpet, a present from her brother, the Prince of Saxony, and finally stained the velvet robe of her Highness herself, who started up screaming, so that the old chamberlain rushed in to know what had happened, and then he fell into a rage both with the priest and the treasurer. length her Grace was comforted by hearing that a chemist in Grypswald could restore the book, and mend the glass again as good as new; still she wept, and exclaimed, "Alas! who could have thought it? all this was foreshadowed to her by Dr. Martinus dropping her ring."

At

Here the treasurer, to conciliate her Grace, pretended that he never had heard the story of the betrothal, and asked, "What does your Grace mean?' Whereupon drying her eyes she answered, “O Master Jacob, you will hear a strange story" and here she went over each particular, though every child in the street had it by heart. So this took away her grief, and every one got to rights again, for that day. But worse was soon to befall.

I have said that half-an-hour before dinner the band played to summon all within the castle and the retainers to their respective messes, as the custom then was; so that the long corridor was soon filled with a crowd of all conditions-pages, knights, squires, grooms, maids, and huntsmen, all hurrying to the apartments where their several tables were laid. Sidonia, being aware of this, upon the first roll of the drum skipped out into the corridor, dancing up and down the whole length of it to the music, so that the players declared they had never seen so beautiful a dancer, at which her

heart beat with joy; and as the crowd came up, they stopped to admire her grace and beauty. Then she would pause and say a few pleasing words to each, to a huntsman, if he were passing-"Ah, I think no deer in the world could escape you, my fine young peasant; or if a knight, she would praise the colour of his doublet and the tie of his garter; or if a laundress, she would commend the whiteness of her linen, which she had never seen equalled; and as to the old cook and butler, she enchanted them by asking, had his Grace of Stettin ever seen them, for assuredly, if he had, he would have taken their fine heads as models for Abraham and Noah. Then she flung largess amongst them to drink the health of the Duchess. Only when a young noble passed, she grew timid and durst not venture to address him, but said, loud enough for him to hear, "Oh, how handsome! you know his name?" Or, "It is easy to see that he is a born nobleman"-and such like hypocritical flatteries.

Do

The Princess never knew a word of all this, for, according to etiquette, she was the last to seat herself at table. So Sidonia's doings were not discovered until too late, for by that time she had won over the whole court, great and small, to her interests.

Amongst the cavaliers who passed one day were two fine young men, Wedig von Schwetzkow, and Johann Appelmann, son of the burgomaster at Stargard. They were both handsome; but Johann was a dissolute, wild profligate, and Wedig was not troubled with too much sense. Still he had not fallen into the evil courses which made the other so notorious. "Who is that handsome youth?" asked Sidonia as Johann passed; and when they told her, "Ah, a gentleman!" she exclaimed, "who is of far higher value in my eyes than a nobleman."

Summa they both fell in love with her on the instant; but all the young squires were the same more or less, except her cousin Marcus Bork, seeing that he was already betrothed.

Likewise after dinner, in place of going direct to the ladies' apartments, she would take a circuitous route, so as to go by the quarter where the men dined, and as she passed their doors, which they left open on purpose, what rejoicing there was, and such running and squeezing just to get a glimpse of her—the little putting their heads under the arms of the tall, and there they began to laugh and chat; but neither the Duchess nor the old chamberlain knew anything of this, for they were in a different wing of the castle, and besides, always took a sleep after dinner.

However, old Zitsewitz, when he heard the clamour, knew well it was Sidonia, and would jump up from the marshal's table, though the old marshal shook his head, and run to the gallery to have a chat with her himself, and she laughed and coquetted with him, so that the old knight would run after her and take her in his arms, asking her where she would wish to go. Then she sometimes said, to the castle garden to feed the pet stag, for she had never seen so pretty a thing in all her life; and she would fetch crumbs of bread with her to feed it. So he must needs go with her, and Sidonia ran down the steps with him that led from the young men's quarter to the castle court, while they all rose up to look after her, and laugh at the old fool of a treasurer. But in a short time they followed too, running up and down the steps in crowds, to see Sidonia feeding the stag and caressing it, and sometimes trying to ride on it, while old Zitsewitz held the horns.

Prince Ernest beheld all this from a window, and was ready to die with jealousy and mortification, for he felt that Sidonia was gay and friendly with every one but him. Indeed, since the day of the lute-playing, he fancied she shunned him and treated him coldly. But as Sidonia had observed particularly, that whenever the young Prince passed her in the gallery he cast down his eyes and sighed, she took another way of managing him.

CHAPTER VI.

How the young Prince prepared a petition to his mother, the Duchess, in favour of Sidonia-Item, of the strange doings of the Laplander with his magic drum.

THE day preceding that on which Sidonia was to repeat the Catechism of Doctor Gerschovius (of which, by the way, she had not learned one word), the young Duke suddenly entered his mother's apartment, where she and her maidens were spinning, and asked her if she remembered anything about a Laplander with a drum, who had foretold some event to her and his father whilst they were at Penemunde some years before; for he had been arrested at Eldena, and was now in Wolgast.

"Alas!" said her Grace, "I perfectly remember the horrible sorcerer. One spring I was at the hunt with your father near Penemunde, when this wretch suddenly appeared driving two cows before him on a large ice-field. He pretended that while he was telling fortunes to the girls who milked the cows, a great storm arose, and drove him out into the wide sea, which was a terrible misfortune to him. But your father told him in Swedish, which language the knave knew, that it had been better to prophesy his own destiny. To which he replied, a man could as little foretell his own fate as see the back of his own head, which every one can see but himself. However, if the Duke wished, he would tell him his fortune, and if it did not come out true, let all the world hold him as a liar for his life long.

"Alas! your father consented. Whereupon the knave began to dance and play upon his drum like one frenzied; so that it was evident to see the spirit was working within him. Then he fell down like one dead, and cried, 'Woe to thee