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him every day in the ante-chamber asking the maid about her and begging to be allowed to see her. The devoted maid would certainly have admitted him had the Countess directed her to do so. This friend was her music teacher, the son of her old nurse, who was only a little older than herself and who had grown up in the palace with her. In public he was known as her servant, in private he was her companion; the hours that she spent with him at the harp she counted among the most beautiful moments of her life. She knew that he would undertake the trip to Vienna for her, even though he were thus to lose the favor of the Count and endanger his own life. But what was she to write to the Emperor? Tell him everything, beg for his protection, make a complaint against her father, and thus lower him in the estimation of the Emperor, whose friendship he so highly valued? Would it not be to him a fatal blow? Would she not by such a confession lower not only him, but also herself? She must be patient and bear the burden that was laid upon her. She had