If the whole of the holy Roman Empire had risen up to make resistance and to mock us, it would have failed to move Ann or me, and I answered, loud and steadfast:  “Everything right and good that ever was done in Nuremberg, my heart’s beloved Cousin, was done there once for the first time; and it is right and good that we should go, and we mean to do it!” Whereupon Cousin Maud drew back in disgust and amazement, and gazed from one to the other of us with enquiring eyes, and as wondering a face as though she were striving to rede some dark riddle.  Then her vast bosom began to heave up and down, and we, who knew her, could not fail to perceive that somewhat great and strange was moving her.  And whereas she presently shook her heavy head to and fro, and set her fists hard on her hips, I looked for a sudden and dreadful storm, and my Uncle Conrad likewise gazed her in the face with expectant fear; yet it was long in breaking forth.  What then was my feeling when, at last, she took her hands from her sides and struck her right hand in her left palm so that it rang again, and burst forth eagerly, albeit with roguish good humor and tearful eyes:  “If indeed everything good and right that ever was done in Nuremberg must have once been done there for the first time, our good town shall now see that a grey-headed old woman with gout in her toes can sail over seas, from the Pegnitz even to the land of the barbarian Heathen and Cairo!  Your hand on it, Young Kubbeling, and yours, Maidens.  We will be fellow-travellers.  Signed and sealed.  Strew sand on it!”

Hereupon Ann, who was wont to be still, shrieked loudly and cast herself first on my cousin’s neck and then on mine and then on my uncle’s; he indeed stood as though deeply offended, as likewise did my good godfather Christian.  Yet they would not speak, that they might not mar our joy, albeit Uncle Pfinzing growled forth that our plan was sheer youthful folly, wilfulness, and the like.  “At any rate it is an unlaid egg, so long as my wife has not added mustard to the peppered broth,” Uncle Conrad declared, and he departed to carry tidings to my aunt of what mad folly these women’s heads had brewed.

Even Kubbeling shook his head, albeit he spoke not, inasmuch as he knew that it was hard to contend with the powers beyond seas.

He and Cousin Maud had ever been on terms of good-fellowship with Uncle Christian, but to-day my uncle was ill to please; neither look nor word had he for his heart’s darling, Ann; and when he presently recovered somewhat, he stormed around, with so red a face and such furious ire that we feared lest he should have another dizzy stroke, saying “that Kubbeling and Cousin Maud might be ashamed of themselves, inasmuch as they were old enough to know better and were acting like a pair of young madcaps.”  And thus he went on, till it was overmuch for the Brunswicker’s endurance, and on a sudden he cried out in great wrath that that he had promised was in truth not wise, forasmuch as