Then came the day when, to avoid answering his question whether she needed anything, she had gone into the garden.  Before reaching the children, who were playing among the crocuses and tulips, she had said to herself that she must leave this house—­it was foolish, nay mad, to continue to cherish the hope which had brought her hither.  She would suffer keenly in tearing it from her heart, but a wild delight seized her at the thought that this imprisonment would soon be over, that she would be free once more, entirely her own mistress, released from every restraint and consideration.  How rapturous was the idea that she would soon be roving through the fields and woods again with gay, reckless companions!  Was there anything more pleasurable than to forget herself, and devote her whole soul to the execution of some difficult and dangerous feat, to attract a thousand eyes by her bewitching grace, and, sustained by her enthusiasm, force a thousand hearts to throb anxiously and give loud applause as she flew over the rope?

Never had the children seen her more extravagantly gay than after her resolve to leave them.  Yet when, at a late hour, Kuni went to bed, the old housekeeper heard her weeping so piteously in her chamber that she rose to ask what had happened.  But the girl did not even open her door, and declared that she had probably had the nightmare.

During the next few days she sometimes appeared more cheerful and docile, sometimes more dull and troubled than her household companions had ever seen her.  Frau Schurstab shook her head over her protegee’s varying moods.  But when the month of May began, and Lienhard told his aunt that Loni, who had only remained in Nuremberg during Lent to spend the time when all public performances were prohibited, had applied to the Council for permission to give exhibitions with his company Easter week in the Haller Meadows, the matron was troubled about her protegee’s peace of mind.  Her nephew had had the same thought, and advised her to move to her country estate, that Kuni might see and hear nothing of the jugglers; but she had noticed the clown with other members of the company, as they passed through the streets on foot and mounted on horses and donkeys, inviting the people, with blare of trumpets and beating of drums, to witness the wonderful feats which Loni’s famous band of artists would perform.

Then Kuni packed her bundle.  But when she heard the next morning that, before going to the country, Frau Schurstab would attend the christening of her youngest grandson, and spend the whole day with the daughter who was the little boy’s mother, she untied it.