At last it was nigh the hour when their Majesties should arrive.  We maids had all assembled.  Albeit we had agreed all to be clad in white, Ursula had decked her head-gear with Ostrich feathers of rose-pink and sky-blue; right costly plumes they were, but over many.  Now would she look into her parchment scroll, and for us she had brief words and few.  The nosegay which her servant in scarlet livery bore in his hand was a mighty fine one; and Akusch and a gardener’s boy presently came up with the posies culled for Ann and me in the Hallers’ garden.  We, and many another maid, clasped our hands in sheer delight, but Ursula cast a look on them which might, if it could, have robbed the roses and Eastern lilies of their sweetness.

The Emperor, it was said, would keep to the hour fixed on; then all the bells began to ring.  I knew them all well, and one I liked best of all; the Benedicta in Saint Sebalds Church, which had been cast by old Master Grunewald, Master Pernhart’s closest friend.  Their brazen voices stirred my soul and heart, and presently the cannon in the citadel and on the wails rattled out a thundering welcome to the Emperor, rending the summer air.  My heart beat higher and faster.  But suddenly I meseemed that all the bravery of the town and the holiday weed of the folks, the chiming of bells and the roaring of cannon were not meant to do honor to the Emperor, but only to my one true love who was coming in his train.

All my thoughts and hopes were set on him.  And when the town-pipers struck up with trumpets and kettledrums, bagpipes and horns, when the far-away muttering and roll of voices swelled to a roaring outcry and an uproarious shout, when from every mouth at every window the cry rose:  “They are corning!”—­yet did I not gaze at their Majesties, to whom the day and festival belonged, but only sought him who was mine—­my own.

There they are! close before us.—­The Emperor and his noble wife, Queen Barbara, the still goodly daughter of the great Hungarian Count of Cilly.

Aye! and he looks the man to rule six realms; worthy to stand at the head of the great German nation.  He might be known among a thousand for an Emperor, and the son of an Emperor!  How straight he sits in his saddle, how youthful yet is the fire in his eye, albeit he has past his fiftieth birthday!  High spirit and contentment in his look; and meseems he has forgotten that he ever summoned the Diet to meet at Ratisbon and is entering the gates of Nuremberg against his will, by reason that the Electors and German princes have chosen to assemble there.  His wife likewise is of noble mien, and she rides a white palfrey which, as she draws rein, strives to turn its pink nostrils to greet the bay horse on which her lord is mounted.

Yet do my eyes not linger long on the lordly pair; they wander down the long train of Knights wherein he is coming, though among the last.  For a moment they rest on the stalwart forms of the Hungarian nobles, all blazing with jewels even to the harness of the steeds; and glance unheedingly at the Electors and Princes, the Dukes, Counts and Knights-all in velvet and silk, gold and silver; at the purple and scarlet of the prelates; at the solemn black with gold chains of the town councillors; on and beyond all the magnificent train which has come with his Majesty from Hungary or gone forth to meet him.