“A miracle!” chuckled Cyriax, but the girl was obliged to conquer a severe attack of coughing before she could go on with her story.

“The chaplet fairly burned my hand.  I would gladly have given it back, but the woman was no longer before me.  Perhaps I might have returned it, but I won’t say so positively.  However, there was no time to do it; the wedding party was coming, and on that account But what is the use of talking?  While I was still gazing, the owner discovered her loss.  An officer seized me, and so I was taken to prison and the next day was brought before the magistrates.  Herr Groland was one of them, and, since it wasn’t certain that I would not have restored the property I found, he interceded in my behalf.  When the others still wished to punish me, he besought my release because it was my first offence.  So we met, and when I admit that I am grateful to him for it, you know all.”

“H’m,” replied Cyriax, giggling, as he nudged his wife in the side and made remarks concerning what he had just heard which induced even red-haired Gitta to declare that the loss of his tongue was scarcely a misfortune.

Kuni indignantly turned her back upon the slanderer and gazed out of the window again.  The Nuremberg Honourables had disappeared, but several grooms were unbuckling the knapsacks from the horses and carrying them into the house.  The aristocratic travellers were probably cleansing themselves from the dust of the road before they entered the taproom.

Kuni thought so, and gazed sometimes into vacancy, sometimes into her own lap.  Her eyes had a dreamy light, for the incident which she had just related rose before her mind with perfect clearness.

It seemed as though she were gazing a second time at the wedding procession which was approaching St. Sebald’s, and the couple who led it.

Never had she beheld anything fairer than the bride with the myrtle wreath on her beautifully formed head, whence a delicate lace veil floated over her long, thick, golden hair.  She could not help gazing at her as if spellbound.  When she moved forward, holding her bridegroom’s hand, she appeared to float over the rice and flowers strewn in her path to the church—­it was in February.  As Kuni saw the bride raise her large blue eyes to her lover’s so tenderly and yet so modestly, and the bridegroom thank her with a long joyous look of love, she wondered what must be the feelings of a maiden who, so pure, so full of ardent love, and so fervently beloved in return, was permitted to approach the house of God, accompanied by a thousand pious wishes, with the first and only man whom she loved, and to whom she wished to devote herself for her whole life.  Again, as at that time, a burning thrill ran through her limbs.  Then a bitter smile hovered around her lips.

She had asked herself whether the heart of one who experienced such joys, to whom such a fate was allotted, would not burst from sheer joy.  Now the wish, the hope, and every new resolve for good or ill were alike over.  At that hour, before the door of St. Sebald’s, she had been capable of all, all, perhaps even the best things, if any one had cherished her in his heart as Lienhard Groland loved the beautiful woman at his side.