The manifold duties which filled up all her days left her but scant time wherein to work for him she loved; nevertheless she had wrought with her needle a letter pouch, whereon the Schoppers’ arms were embroidered in many colored silks, and the words ‘Agape’ and ’Pistis’—­which are in Greek Love and Faithfulness in Greek letters with gold thread.  Cousin Maud had dipped deep into her purse and likewise into her linen-press, and on the table under the Christmas-tree lay many a thing fit for the bride-chest of a maid of good birth; and albeit Ann could not but rejoice over these gifts for their own sake, she did so all the more gladly, inasmuch as she guessed that Cousin Maud was well-disposed to speed her marriage.

We were all, indeed, glad and thankful; all save the Magister, whose face was ill-content and sour by reason that he had culled many verses and maxims concerning love, for the most part from the Greek and Latin poets, and yet all his attempts to repeat them before Ann came to nothing, inasmuch as she was again and again taken up with Herdegen and with me, after she had once shaken hands with him and given him her greetings.

At supper he was as dumb as the carp which were served, and it befell that for the first time Herdegen took his seat between him and his heart’s beloved; and verily I was grieved for him when, after supper, he withdrew downcast to his own chamber.  The rest of us went forth to Saint Sebald’s church, where that night there would be midnight matins, as there was every year, and a mass called the Christ mass.  Cousin Maud and Kunz were with us, as in the old happy days when we were children and when we never missed; and in the streets as we went, we met all manner of folks singing gladly: 

          Puer natus in Bethlehem,
          Sing, rejoice, Jerusalem!

or the carol: 

          Congaudeat turba fadelium! 
          Natus est rex, Salvator omnium
          In Bethlehem.

and we joined in; and at last all went together to see Ann to her home.

Next evening there were more costly gifts, but albeit Puer natus was still to be heard in the streets, we no longer were moved to join in.

CHAPTER XII.

Every Christmas all my grand-uncle’s kith and kin, or so many of them as were on good terms with him, assembled in the great house of the Im Hoffs.  Everything in that dwelling spoke of ease and wealth, and no banqueting-hall could be more brightly lighted or more richly decked than that where the old man welcomed us on the threshold; and yet, how well soever the hearth was piled or the stove heated, a chill breath seemed to blow there.

While great and small were rejoicing over the grand old knight’s bounty he himself would ever stand apart, and his calm, hueless countenance expressed no change.  Meseemed he cared but little for the pleasure he gave us all; yet was he not idle in the matter, nor left it to others; for there was no single gift which he had not himself chosen as befitting him to whom it should be given.