cousins, Posy and Birdy, would prefer that blue silk girdle, and whether the green stockings would suit little Gottschalk.  But all at once it flashed on her, “Ah, Lord! they are all grown up now, and yesterday they were slain!” She shuddered, and the pictures of the previous night filled her soul with all their horror again.  But the gold-embroidered cloths glittered once more with a thousand roguish eyes, and drove the gloomy thoughts from her mind, and when she looked into her husband’s face she saw that it was free from clouds, and bore its habitual, serious gentleness.  “Shut your eyes, Sara!” said the Rabbi, and he led his wife on through the crowd.

What a gay, active throng!  Most prominent were the tradesmen, who were loudly vying one another in offering bargains, or talking together and summing on their fingers, or, following heavily loaded porters, who at a dog-trot were leading the way to their lodgings.  By the faces of others one could see that they came from curiosity.  The stout councilman was recognizable by his scarlet cloak and golden chain; a black, expensive-looking, swelling waistcoat betrayed the honorable and proud citizen.  An iron spike-helmet, a yellow leather jerkin, and rattling spurs, weighing a pound, indicated the heavy cavalry-man.  Under little black velvet caps, which came together in a point over the brow, there was many a rosy girl-face, and the young fellows who ran along after them, like hunting-dogs on the scent, showed that they were finished dandies by their saucily feathered caps, their squeaking peaked shoes, and their colored silk garments, some of which were green on one side and red on the other, or else striped like a rainbow on the right and checkered with harlequin squares of many colors on the left, so that the mad youths looked as if they were divided in the middle.

Carried along by the crowd, the Rabbi and his wife arrived at the Roemer.  This is the great market-place of the city, surrounded by houses with high gables, and takes its name from an immense building, “the Roemer,” which was bought by the magistracy and dedicated as the town-hall.  In it the German Emperor was elected, and before it tournaments were often held.  King Maximilian, who was passionately fond of this sport, was then in Frankfort, and in his honor the day before there had been great tilting in the Roemer.  Many idle men still stood on or about the scaffolding, which was being removed by carpenters, telling how the Duke of Brunswick and the Margrave of Brandenburg had charged one another amid the sound of drums and of trumpets, and how Lord Walter the Vagabond had knocked the Knight of the Bear out of his saddle so violently that the splinters of the lances flew high into the air, while the tall, fair-haired King Max, standing among his courtiers upon the balcony, rubbed his hands for joy.  The golden banners were still to be seen on the balconies and in the Gothic windows of the town-hall.  The other houses of the market-place were still likewise