On this the Junker answered with such high and grave dignity as I should not have looked for in so scatter-brained a wight:  “The best patent of nobility, fair lady, is that of the maid to whom God Almighty has vouchsafed the gentlest soul and sweetest grace; and in all this assembly I have found none more richly endowed with both than the damsel against whom I in jest have made complaint.  Wherefor I pray the presiding judge of this Court of Love to ask you once more for your verdict.”

Ursula found this ill to brook; nevertheless her high spirit was ready to meet it.  She laughed loudly, and with seeming lightness, as she hastily answered him:  “Then you haughty lords of the marches allow not that it is in the Emperor’s power to grant letters of nobility, but ascribe it to Heaven alone!  A bold opinion.  Howbeit, I care not for politics, and will pronounce my sentence.  If it had been Margery Schopper, who had refused the kiss, or Elsa Ebner, or any one of us whose ancestors bore arms by grace of the Emperor, and not of the God of the Brandenburgers, I would have condemned her to give you, in lieu of one kiss, two, in the presence of witnesses; but inasmuch as it is Mistress Ann Spiesz who has dared to withhold from a noble gentleman, a guest of the town, what we highborn damsels would readily have paid I grant her of our mercy, grace and leave to kiss the hand of Junker Henning von Beust, in token of penitence.”  The words were spoken clearly and steadfastly; all were silent, and I will confess that as Ursula gave her answer to the Junker with beaming eyes and quivering lips, never had I seen her more fair.  It could plainly be seen by her heaving bosom how gladly she gave free vent to her old cherished grudge; and that she had in truth wounded the maid she hated to the very soul, Ann showed by her deathly paleness.  Yet found she not a word in reply; and while Ursula was speaking, meseemed in the fullness of my wrath and grief as though a cloud were rising before my eyes.  But so soon as she ceased and my eyes met the triumphant look in hers, my mind suddenly grew clear again, and never heeding the multitude that stood about us, I went a step forward, and cried:  “We all thank you, Junker; you have taken the worthier part; the only part, Ursula,” and I looked her sternly in the face, “the only part which I would have a friend of mine take, or any true heart.”

The Junker bowed, and with a reproachful glance at Ursula he said:  “Would to God I might never have a harder choice to make!” Whereupon he turned his back on her and went up to Ann; but Ursula again laughed loudly and called after him in defiance:  “Oh! may heaven ever keep your wits clear when you have to choose, and especially when you have to discern on the high-road betwixt what is your own and what belongs to other folks.”

The blood mounted to the Junker’s face, and, as with a hasty gesture he smoothed back the fierce hair on his lip, methought he might seem the same as when he rose in his saddle to rush down on our merchants’ wains; for indeed it was the Beusts, with the Alvenslebens, their near kinsfolks, who had fallen upon the train of waggons belonging to the Muffels and the Tetzels, near Juterbock, not a year ago.