On the morning of the third day after his coming, my lord Cardinal rode forth to the forest with Ann; and, inasmuch as the duties of his office now led, him to sojourn in Wurzberg and Bamberg, he could promise us that he would bless our union or ever he departed to Italy.  Albeit methought it would be a happy chance if we might stand at the altar at the same time with Herdegen and Ann, Gotz’s impatience, which had waxed no lesser even during his journeyings, was set against our waiting for my brother’s coming.  Likewise he desired that we might live together a space as man and wife, before he should go to Venice to get his release from the service of the Republic.

At the same time he deemed it not prudent to take me with him on that journey, howbeit, after that we were wed, when he was about to depart, I made so bold as to beseech him; and he plainly showed me that I had not made him wroth or troubled him whereas he willingly granted me to journey with him, and without reproof.  Thus I fared with him to the great and mighty city of Saint Mark, which I had ever longed to behold with my bodily eyes.  I never went beyond seas, yet we journeyed as far as Rome, and there, under the protection and guidance of my lord Cardinal, I spent many never-to-be-forgotten days by the side of my Gotz.

But one thing at a time; some day, if my many years may suffer, I will write more concerning these matters.

How well my aunt and the Cardinal were minded towards each other would be hard to describe, albeit now and again they fell to friendly strife; the reverend prelate found it hard to depart from the lodge and from that strange woman, whose clear and busy brain in her sickly body came, in after times, to be accounted as one of the great marvels of her native town.  Howbeit, it was his duty to pass Christmas-eve with his venerable mother.  He plighted Gotz and me as he had promised us, and to his life’s end he was ever a kind and honored friend and patron to us and to our children.

Ann was ever his favorite, and ere he quitted Nuremberg, he bestowed on her a dowry such as few indeed of our richest nobles could give with their daughters.

Christmas-eve, which we spent at the lodge with our parents and the Chaplain and my dear godfather, uncle Christian Pfinzing, was a right glorious festival, bringing gladness to our souls; yet was it to end with the first peril that befell our love’s young joy.  After the others had gone to their chambers, and Gotz had indeed given me a last parting kiss, he stayed me a moment and besought me to be ready early in the morning to ride with him to the hut of Martin the bee keeper, whose wife had been his nurse.  On many a Christmas morning had he greeted the good woman with some little posy, and now he had not found one hour to spare her since his home-coming.  Now I would fain have granted this simple request but that I had privily, with the Chaplain’s help, made the school children to learn a Christmas carol