born to him, and grew to be the most beautiful girl in Neisse. Her father prospered, made money, and became mayor. Indeed, he was a little king in his own way, but was tyrannical and exacting, and while everybody adored Brunhelda, his pretty daughter, he was far from being respected. When any of the young men of the village tried to win his favour in the hope of gaining the daughter’s hand, he ordered them off with a peremptoriness that left no doubt about his determination.
‘My girl,’ he used to boast, ‘shall marry a lord. My father was a charcoal burner, and in my youth I knew the curse of poverty. Now I am going to be the founder of a family, and rather than let Brunhelda marry a humble person I would carry her to her grave.’
Although he expressed himself thus forcibly and emphatically, he did not explain how he hoped to get a lord as a son-in-law, but that was a detail; and, being a deep, designing, and crafty man, he probably had some matured plan in his own mind.
Now it chanced that when Brunhelda was two-and-twenty a young artist came to Neisse, which was famed for a very ancient church and for marvellous views, which were to be obtained from different parts of the town, for it stood on an eminence in a very beautiful and fertile country. It was, therefore, no uncommon thing for artists to visit the place. This particular one became known as Robert Kuno, and he took up his quarters at the village inn. One day he was in the ancient church sketching a very picturesque archway, when Brunhelda entered with a number of other girls, laden with flowers, as they were going to decorate the church in honour of some festival.
Robert was at once attracted by Brunhelda’s beauty, and, getting into conversation with her, he begged that she would pose for him while he made a drawing. She was by no means loth to do this. Indeed, she felt flattered, for she knew she was good-looking, and she would have been a strange woman if she had had no vanity. Robert placed her in the position he wanted near the archway, and pro-
