Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/260

 by the attempt; Lucretia enjoyed her triumph, as she cruelly smiled upon his competitor before his face.

By way of coup-de-grace to her victim, she one day gave a magnificent entertainment, whereat, while the dessert was enlivened by charming music, vocal and instrumental, some friends, instructed by her previously, pressed round her and begged that she would give some name to this happy day, by which it might ever be remembered. “It is for you, my kind friends,” said she, “rather than for me, to do this.” But as they continued to urge her, she at last exclaimed, with malicious emphasis: “Well, then, we will call this day, Count Ulric’s Defeat!”

For a time the unfortunate lover gave way to despair; but common sense constantly reminding him that at all events despair would do no good, seeing that the fair ones of that day were not given to sentimentality, he resolved to keep up his spirits and make a vigorous effort to recover the position he had lost. “Vanity,” said he to himself, “is Lucretia’s ruling passion, and ’tis that I must work upon, cost what it may.” He accordingly became once more the heart and soul of the Court, taking the lead in all the entertainments that were got up, and himself vying with the richest nobles there in the costliness of his own fêtes, all of which were avowedly given in honour of Lucretia, who readily