Hereupon she looked at me, at first in amazement and then with a blissful consenting smile, and said “You had imagined the same thing, I know.  Yes, Margery, we will go.”

The others now trooped in, and I had no more time but hastily to clasp her hand.  Howbeit, when most of our guests had gone into the refectory, where the morning meal was by this time steaming on the board, none were left with us save Cousin Maud and Uncle Conrad and Uncle Christian; and Uncle Conrad enquired of the Brunswicker whether he purposed indeed to set forth this day, and the man answered No, if so be that his lordship the grand-forester would grant him shelter yet awhile, and consent to a plan to which he had been just now beguiled.

And my uncle gave him his hand, and said the longer he might stay the better.  And then he went on to ask with some curiosity what that plan might be.  Howbeit, I took upon me to speak, and I told him in few words how that we had been thinking whom we might best send forth to help my brethren, and that, with the morning sun, light had dawned on our minds, and that whereas we had found a faithful and experienced companion, it was our firm intent....

Here Cousin Maud broke in, having come close to me with open ears, crying aloud in terror:  “What?” Howbeit I looked her in the eyes and went on: 

“When our mind is set, Cousin, the thing will be done, of that you and all may make certain—­that stands as sure as the castle on the rock.  And be it known to you all, with all due respect, that this time I will suffer none to cross my path.  Once for all, I, Margery, and Ann with me, are going forth to the land of Egypt in Kubbeling’s company, and to Cairo itself!”

The worthy old woman gave a scream, and while the Brunswicker shut the dining-hall door, that we might not be heard, she broke out, with glowing eyes, beside herself with wrath:  “Verily and indeed!  So that is your purpose!  Thanks be to the Virgin, to say and to do are not one and the same, far from it.  Do you conceive that you hold all love for those two youths yonder in sole fief or lease?  As though others were not every whit as ready as you to give their best to save them.  A head that runs at a wall cracks its skull!  Maids should never touch matters which do not beseem them!  What next for a skittle-witted fancy!—­That it should have come into the brain of a Schopper is no marvel, but Ann, prudent Ann!  Would any man have dreamed of such a thing in our young days, Master Cousin?  There they stand, two well born Nuremberg damsels, who have never been suffered to go next door alone after Ave Maria!  And they are fain to cross the seas to a dark outlandish place, into the very jaws of the dreadful Heathen who butcher Christian people!” Whereupon she clapped her hands and laughed aloud, albeit not from her heart, and then raved on:  “At least is it a new thing, and the first time that the like hath ever been heard of in Nuremberg!”