all the trouble in the world to follow. Although the swift courser seemed to be abandoned to itself, an invisible power still guided the reins and spurred its sides. Miss Libussa, thanks to the magic power which she had inherited from her mother, had so well trained the horse, that it did not go out of the road either to the right or to the left, but hastened straight to its destination; and she waited with tender expectation for the chosen one to come, as everything seemed to incline to the fulfilment of her wishes.
The envoys in the meantime had a hard course to run. They had already proceeded a great number of miles, over hill and dale; they had passed the river Moldau, swimming; and, as their stomachs put them in mind of their dinners, they also recellected the wondrous table upon which their new prince, according to the words of Libussa, would be taking his meal. They made all sorts of comment upon it, and one forward knight said to his companions, “I believe our lady the duchess means to make April fools of us; for who ever heard of a man in Bohemia who dines upon an iron table? What is the bet, that our hasty travelling will only bring down upon us ridicule and shame?” But another, who had more sense, thought that the iron table might have an em-