Page:Popular Tales of the Germans (Volume 1).djvu/279

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OF THE VEIL.
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of progenitors fabricated with little trouble, of a length and breadth ſuitable to the formality, yet he prudently reſted his pretenſions to be admitted into ſo illuſtrious a family on the teſtimony of love, who, as he ſaid, pairs like with like, and does not couple the jackdaw with the eagle, nor the owl with the oſtrich. In ſaying this he appealed to his ſword, as an irreproachable evidence, ready to maintain, againſt an hoſt of gainſayers, the honour of his birth. Zoe found nothing to object to the validity of theſe proofs, eſpecially as ſhe obſerved, that the ſtranger knight had awakened Calliſta’s ſenſibility, in which caſe a prudent mother, unleſs ſhe is diſpoſed wantonly to diſturb the family peace, has no alternative but to approve her dear daughter’s choice, and totally to forego the maternal prerogative of controuling the concerns of the virgin’s heart.

Miſs Calliſta dubbed honeſt Friedbert a Tetrarch in Swabia, with as good a right as his holineſs creates biſhops and prelates in partibus, and under this ſplendidtitle