“An insolent fellow, indeed, is my son,” said the duchess, “but you see, Thusnelda, he says, pater peccavi, and I am convinced that you will find something very pretty and acceptable in your room.”
“I will not take it—indeed I will not,” pouted the lady of honor. “He so fearfully tormented me last night. I assure your highness I was half dead with terror and—”
“And yet you will forgive him, Thusnelda, for the duke is your declared favorite; you dare not reproach him were he never so insolent, for you are just as much so, and not a hair’s-breadth better. Come, go up and see what it is.”
She went, and found four masons, who had been at work since daybreak to remove the wall and replace the door. Thusnelda was obliged to laugh in spite of the unhappy night she had passed, as she climbed over rubbish and ruins into her room, and met her maid dissolved in tears, who related to her that “the duke had had her walled in, for fear she would tell the trick to her mistress.”
“And so you were really hermetically sealed?” said the duchess.
“Yes, your highness,” whimpered the maid, “I thought I never should see daylight again. I wept and prayed all night. The only thing that consoled me was the duke’s command, which Philip brought to me, to give this little box to Fraulein so soon as the wall should be taken away in the morning.”
“Give it to me, Lieschen,” cried Thusnelda, impatiently, her face beaming with satisfaction, however, when she opened the box. “Now, duchess, that is what I call a surprise, and the duke shall be, as he ever has been, my favorite. If he does sometimes play rude tricks, he makes it all right again, in a very generous and princely manner. See what a beautiful watch his highness has brought me, ornamented with diamonds!”
“Yes, it is very pretty; give it to me that I may return it to the duke, and not mortify him too much, as you will not wear it.”
“I will accept it, duchess,” cried Thusnelda, laughing—“and all is forgiven and forgotten.”