True, these were the very girls who would "turn yellow with rage" at the sight of the velvet, but precisely because these rich girls had so many things of which she was deprived she felt that, in asking their aid, she was compelling Fate to atone for an injustice.
Haste was necessary for, at the first glance at the velvet, she had determined to wear it at the next dance in the New Scales, and she also saw distinctly in imagination the person whose attention she desired to attract.
True, the recruiting officer sent to Ratisbon, of whom she was thinking, was by no means a more acceptable suitor, but a handsome fellow, a scion of a noble family, and, above all, an excellent dancer.
She did not love him--nay, she was not even captivated by him like so many others.

But, if his heart throbbed faster for any one, it was Barbara.

Yet perhaps his glances strayed almost as frequently to one other maiden.

The velvet gown should now decide whether he gave the preference to her or to pretty Elspet Zohrer--of course, only in the dance--for she would never have accepted him as a serious suitor.
Besides, the young noble, Pyramus Kogel, himself probably thought of no such folly.
It was very different with Wolf Hartschwert.

She had been told the small amount of his inheritance long before, and on that account she would have been obliged to refuse him positively at once, yet the affectionate relations existing between them must not be clouded.