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.

The stroke of apoplexy which had attacked the woman of seventy had been slight, and merely affected her speech a little.  But she found plenty of words to show Wolf how happy it made her to see him again, and to tell him about his foster parents’ last illness and death.

The precentor and organist, aided by Bishop Pangraz Sinzenhofer and Blasius, the captain of the city guard, had endeavoured to collect the papers which proved Wolf’s noble birth.  The package that Barbara handed to her the evening before contained the patent of nobility newly authorized by King Frederick at Vienna and the certificate of baptism which proved him to be the only son of the Frank Knight Ullmann Hartschwert and the Baroness Wendula Sandhof.

His mother’s family died with her; on his father’s side, as the precentor had learned, he still had an uncle, his father’s older brother, but his castle had been destroyed during the Peasant War.  He himself had commanded for several years a large troop of mercenaries in the service of the Queen of England, and his three children, a son and two daughters, had entered monastic and conventual life.

The contents of the package confirmed all these statements.  Moreover, the very Dr. Hiltner, of whom Barbara’s father had spoken so disagreeably, had paid a visit the day before to Ursel, who had won the esteem of the preceptor’s old friend, and told her that he wished to talk with Wolf about an important matter.