in love with the maid, betrayed the plot, and then, Mistress Margery, were things said and done—­things concerning which I had best hold my peace.  And if you crave to know them, you may ask my mother.  You will see some day, if you do not scorn to enter my house and if you gain her friendship—­and I doubt not that you will, albeit it is not granted to every one—­she will be glad enough to complain of my dealings in this matter—­mine, her own son’s, although on other points she is wont to praise my virtues over-loudly.”

This discourse raised my cousin once more to his old place in my opinion, and I knew now that the honest glance of his blue eyes, which doubtless had won fair Gertrude’s heart, was trustworthy and true.

Master Ulman Pernhart was married in a right sober fashion to fair Mistress Giovanna, and I remember to this day seeing them wed in Saint Laurence’s Church.  It was a few months before this that I was taken for the first time to a dance at the town hall.  There, as soon as I had forgotten my first little fears, I took my pleasure right gladly to the sound of the music, and I verily delighted in the dance.  But albeit I found no lack of young ladies my friends, and still less of youths who would fain win my favor, I nevertheless lost not the feeling that I had left part of my very being at home; nay, that I scarce had a right to these joys, since my brothers were in a distant land and Ann could not share them with me, and while I was taking my pleasure she had the heart-ache.

Then was there a second dance, and a third and fourth; and at home there came a whole troop of young men in their best apparel to ask of Cousin Maud, each after his own fashion, to be allowed to pay court to me; but albeit they were all of good family, and to many a one I felt no dislike, I felt nothing at all like love as I imagined it, and I would have nothing to say to any one of them.  And all this I took with a light heart, for which Cousin Maud many a time,—­and most rightly—­reproved me.

But at that time, and yet more as the months went on, I hardly knew my own mind; another fate than my own weighed most on my soul; and I thought so little of my own value that meseemed it could add to no man’s happiness to call me his.  All else in life passed before my eyes like a shadow; a time came when all joy was gone from me, and my suitors sought me in vain in the dancing-hall, for a great and heavy grief befell me.

All was at an end—­even now I scarce can bear to write the words—­between Ann and Herdegen; and by no fault of hers, but only and wholly by reason of his great and unpardonable sin.