Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/266

 what conditions are these on which the competitors are to win or lose thee?” The audacious girl could hardly conceal her triumphant laughter as she replied: “Madam, I simply require that the one and the other shall get rid of their little superfluities: Count Ulric must bring his shoulders, and Count Rupert his back, to a proper level, ere I consent to receive the marriage ring from either; and I have your Majesty’s royal word that until they have effected this condition they shall not be entitled to claim me for a bride.”

“Perfidious serpent!” exclaimed the enraged Empress, “quit my sight; you have deceived me by an unworthy artifice, but I have given my royal word, and I will adhere to it.” Lucretia, haying been thus ignominiously dismissed, her Majesty threw herself back on the sofa, and for a short time gave way to vexation at having been thus foiled by a chit of a girl. She then sent word to the respective candidates of the disagreeable result of her intervention. Ulric was quite inconsolable at the intelligence; more especially he felt in its full force the bitterness of malice with which the insolent Lucretia had cast at him reproachfully a defect which he himself hardly ever thought of, so little did he deem it noticed by others. “Could the shameless creature,” cried he, “find no gentler pretext for dismissing me, after having ruined me