And yet—­so strange a being is woman!—­desirous like the Hindoo wife to sacrifice herself on whatever altar she raises in her heart, Marguerite, in order to marry Dumiger, had refused the greatest offers,—­amongst others, no less a person than the son of that house into which she had been received.  But irrespective of the affection which she felt for Dumiger, she was in her nature proud and haughty, and she would not have consented, even under other and less favorable circumstances, to have entered where she was despised by the rest of the family.  It may be imagined how great indignation was excited in this man by her refusal, the more especially as, like Dumiger, he thought himself a proficient in science and the mechanical arts, and was one of those who in his way was laboring for the prize so soon to be awarded by the city.  If merit was to be the test of success, he had but little chance; but where is that man and where are those minds with whom rank and power have not their weight?  He was, therefore, if not the most formidable by intellect, at all events by circumstance, the one of Dumiger’s competitors the most to be dreaded, for his father was the president of that council which presided over the destinies of Dantzic, and who usurped more than imperial authority.  He belonged to the ancient house of Albrect, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and oldest freeman of the Hanseatic League.  A strange, proud man, who when he learned indirectly that his son Frederick was in love with Marguerite, indulged in a storm of fearful indignation, until he found from her that on no account did she intend to accept the suit; and then, in spite of his gratification at the certainty that his son could not make a marriage which he thought so discreditable, his vanity was wounded at her decision, and even while he praised Marguerite’s disinterested conduct, in his heart he was garnering up hatred against her.  A blow to vanity is terrible, and it is a blow which the humblest and weakest can give as well as the most powerful, in the contempt or even the indifference expressed for the pursuit in which we are interested, or for the object which we have attained.  So much of our opinion of the value of an object depends on the price which others set upon it, that it is sufficient to know others are indifferent to it for ourselves to undervalue it.  But Marguerite went forward in her career of happiness, quite ignorant of the dislike she was leaving behind her.  She told Frederick the truth, that she loved Dumiger, and kindly added, that but for this circumstance she might one day have loved him; and then with a light heart she left the splendid palace for the abode of poverty.