When, after Barbara’s bell-like, well-trained voice had sung many other melodies, the young knight at last took leave of his old friends, he whispered that he had not expected to find home so delightful.

She, too, went to rest in a joyous, happy mood, and, as she lay in her narrow bed, asked herself whether she could not renounce her ardent longing for wealth and splendour and be content with a modest life at Wolf’s side.

She liked him, he would cherish her, and lovingly devote the great skill which he had gained in Italy and the Netherlands to the final cultivation of her voice.  Her house would become a home of art, her life would be pervaded and ennobled by song and music.  What grander existence could earth offer?

Before she found an answer to this question, sleep closed her weary eyes.  But when, the next morning, the cobbler’s one-eyed daughter, who, since old Ursel’s illness, had done the rough work in the chambers and kitchen, waked her, she speedily changed her mind.  It was hard to rise early after the day’s ironing and the late hour at which she had retired, and, besides, when Barbara returned from mass, the maid reported that Frau Lerch had been there and left the message that Fran Itzenweck wanted the laces which had been promised to her early that day.

So Barbara was obliged to go to work again immediately after the early breakfast.  But, while she was loosening the laces from the pins and stirring her slender white fingers busily for the wretched pittance, her soul was overflowing with thoughts of the most sublime works of music, and the desire for success, homage, and a future filled with happiness and splendour.

Vehement repugnance to the humble labour to which necessity forced her was like a bitter taste in her mouth, and, ere she had folded the last strips of lace, she turned her back to the work-table and pressed both hands upon her bosom, while from the inmost depths of her tortured soul came the cry:  “I will never bear it!  In one way or another I will put an end to this life of beggary.”

Thanks to old Ursel’s care, Wolf had found his bed made and everything he needed at hand in his foster parents’ deserted lodging.  To avoid disturbing the sick woman, he removed his shoes in the entry, and then glided into his former little room.  Weariness had soon closed his eyes also, but only for a few hours.  His fevered blood, fear, and hope drove him from his couch at the first dawn of morning.

Ere returning to the two men the evening before, Barbara had hastily spoken to Ursula, and brought her whatever she preferred to receive from her hands rather than those of the one-eyed maid who spent the night with her—­her Sunday cap and a little sealed package which she kept in her chest.  When Wolf tapped at her door early the next morning, she was already up, and had had her cap put on.  This was intended to give her a holiday appearance, but the expression of her faithful eyes and the smile upon her sunken mouth showed her darling that his return was a festival to her.