My grand-uncle had esteemed him but lightly, so long as Herdegen was his delight; but whereas Kunz had done good service at Venice and the master of the Im Hoff house there was dead, and our guardian himself, on whom a grievous sickness had fallen, gave himself up day and night to meet his end, he had, little by little, given over the whole business of the trade to his young nephew; thus it came to pass that Kunz, when he was but just twenty, was called upon to govern matters such as are commonly trusted only to a man of ripe years.  But his power and wisdom grew with the weight of his burthens.  Whether it were at Nuremberg or at Venice, he was ever early to rise and ready, if need should be, to give up his night’s rest, sitting over his desk or travelling at great speed; and he seemed to have no eyes nor ears for the pleasures of youth.  Or ever he was four and twenty I found the first white hair in his brown locks.  Many there were who deemed that the uncommon graveness of his manners came of the weight of care which had been laid on him so young, and verily not without reason; yet my sister’s heart was aware of another cause.  When I chanced to see his eye rest on Ann, I knew enough; and it was a certainty that I had not erred in my thought, when old Dame Pernhart one day in his presence spoke of Ann as her poor, dear little widow, and the blood mounted to his brow.

I would fain have spoken a word of warning to Ann when she would thank him with heartfelt and sisterly love for all the pains he had been at, with steadfast patience, to find any token of our lost brother.  And how fair was the forlorn bride in these days of waiting and of weary unsatisfied longing!

Poor Kunz!  Doubtless he loved her; and yet he neither by word nor deed gave her cause to guess his heart’s desire.  When, at about this time, old Hans Tucher died, one of the worthiest and wisest heads of the town and the council, Kunz gave Ann for her name-day a prayer-book with the old man’s motto, which he had written in it for Kunz’s confirmation, which was as follows: 

                   “God ruleth all things for the best
                    And sends a happy end at last.”

And Ann took the gift right gladly; and more than once when, after some disappointment, my spirit sank, she would point to the promise “And sends a happy end at last.”

Whereupon I would look up at her, abashed and put to shame; for it is one thing not to despair, and another to trust with steadfast confidence on a happy outcome.  She, in truth, could do this; and when I beheld her day by day at her laborious tasks, bravely and cheerfully fulfilling the hard and bitter exercises which her father-confessor enjoined, to the end that she might win the favor of the Saints for her lover, I weened that the Apostle spake the truth when he said that love hopeth all things and believeth all things.