"Father, it is high time to think of my dress; it must be new and elegant."
"You shall have it," said her father, solemnly; "it is an honor to sing before the king. I will make you a magnificent dress out of your mother's bridal robe."
Anna laughed contemptuously. "No, no, father; the time is past when we dared to wear the clothes of our great-grandmothers. The day is gone by for family relics. How the ladies of the court would laugh at my mother's old flowered robe! Besides, the dress is too narrow for a modern hoop robe, the only style now tolerated."
"A hoop robe!" cried the father, in tones of horror; "she wishes to wear a hoop robe!"
"Yes, and why not?" said Anna. "Does not the beautiful Blanche wear one? and have not all the court ladies adopted them? No fashionable lady would dare now appear without a hoop robe."
"Who is Blanche?" cried M. Pricker, rising from his chair and looking threateningly at Anna, "who is Blanche?"
"Do you not know, father? Oh, you are only pretending not to know! Dearest Blanche, whom I love like a sister, and to whom I can only pay stolen visits, for her father is furious that you have not returned his visit, and has forbidden any of his family to enter our house."
"He did right; and I also forbid you to cross his threshold. I thought, Anna, you had too much pride to enter the house of your father's enemy, or speak to his daughter."
Anna shrugged her shoulders silently, and now quick steps were heard approaching.
"Oh, quel pleusir d'etre amoreuse," sang a fresh, manly voice.