This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A STORY OF BOHEMIAN LOVE
35

keep her family name, and in case of marriage to transmit it to her children. The Empress had granted him this privilege because of his family misfortune and against the wishes of the younger branch of the Felsenburks, who tried to move heaven and earth against it.

Maria Felicia Felsenburk was worshiped in her childhood, by all who saw her, as a child of angelic beauty, and now asa maiden she was known to be the most beautiful among the Prague nobility. But more than all others her father admired her. The Count fell so deeply in love with his daughter while she was yet in the cradle that he never regretted her having been born a girl instead of a boy. For whole days he would stay by her side, blindly humoring all her whims. Why, was she not a Felsenburk? Then, who could indulge their fancies, if not she? At the table his daughter always sat by his right side as his dearest guest, and he never drank his wine until she had tasted of it with her rosy lips. When he went out with her, followed by a retinue of attendants, the Prague people