What an artless delight in the fairest, most pleasing thing in Nature to a sensitive young human soul this simple sentence voiced to the Netherland musicians!  It seemed to them as if the song filled the dim, cold corridor with warmth and sunlight.  Thus Gombert had heard within his mind the praise of spring when he set it to music, but had never before had it thus understood by any singer, reproduced by any human voice.

The excitable man stood as if spellbound; only a curt “My God! my God!” gave expression to his emotion.  The blunter Appenzelder, on the contrary, when the singer suddenly paused and a door closed behind her, exclaimed:  “The deuce, that’s fine!—­If that were your helper in need, Sir Wolf, all would be well!”

“It is,” replied Wolf proudly, with sparkling eyes; but the honest old fellow rushed after Barbara, held out both hands to her in his frank, cordial way, and cried: 

“Thanks, heartfelt thanks, my dear, beautiful young lady!  But if you imagine that this drop of nectar will suffice, you are mistaken.  You have awakened thirst!  Now see—­and Gombert will thank you too—­that it is quenched with a fuller gift of this drink of the gods.”

The Netherlanders found the table spread, and this rehearsal of the Convivium musicum brought Barbara Blomberg the happiest hours which life had ever bestowed.

She saw with a throbbing heart that her singing not only pleased, but deeply stirred the heart of the greatest composer of his time, whose name had filled her with timid reverence, and that, while listening to her voice, the eyes of the sturdy Appenzelder, who looked as if his broad breast was steeled against every soft emotion, glittered with tears.

This had happened during the execution of Josquin de Pres’s “Ecce tu pulchra es’.”

Barbara’s voice had lent a special charm to this magnificent motet, and, when she concluded the “Quia amore langueo”—­“Because I yearn for love”—­to which she had long given the preference when she felt impelled to relieve her heart from unsatisfied yearning, she had seen Gombert look at the choir leader, and understood the “inimitable” which was not intended for her, but for his fellow-artist.

Hitherto she had done little without pursuing a fixed purpose, but this time Art, and the lofty desire to serve her well, filled her whole being.  In the presence of the most famous judges she imposed the severest demands upon herself.  Doubtless she was also glad to show Wolf what she could do, yet his absence would not have diminished an iota of what she gave the Netherlanders.  She felt proud and grateful that she belonged to the chosen few who are permitted to express, by means of a noble art, the loftiest and deepest feelings in the human breast.  Had not Appenzelder been compelled to interrupt the rehearsal, she would gladly have sung on and on to exhaustion.

She did not yet suspect what awaited her when, in well-chosen yet cordial words, Gombert expressed his appreciation.