ss? What Wawerl offers to the eyes and ears of men is certainly
most beautiful. But her heart! It is lacking! Unselfish love would be
precisely what the early orphaned youth needs, and that Wawerl will
never give him. Yet I wish no heavier anxieties oppressed me! One thing
is certain--the husband of the girl upstairs must wear a different look
from my darling, with his modest worth. The Danube will flow uphill
before she goes to the altar with him! So, thank Heaven, I can console
myself with that!"

But, soon after, she remembered many things which she had formerly
believed impossible, yet which, through unexpected influence, had
happened.

Then torturing uneasiness seized her. She anxiously clasped her
emaciated hands, and from her troubled bosom rose the prayer that the
Lord would preserve her darling from the fulfilment of the most ardent
desire of his heart.

CHAPTER VIII.

Wolf's first walk took him to the Golden Cross, the lodgings of the
Emperor Charles and his court. The sky had clouded again, and a keen
northwest wind was blowing across the Haidplatz and waving the banner
on the lofty square battlemented tower at the right of the stately old
edifice.

It had originally belonged to the Weltenburg family as a strong
offensive and defensive building, then frequently changed hands.

The double escutcheon on the bow-window was that of the Thun and Fugger
von Reh families, who had owned it in Wolf's childhood.

Now he glanced up to see whether young Herr Crafft, to whom the building
now belonged, had not also added an ornament to it. But when Wolf's
gaze wandered so intently from the tower to the bow-window, and from the
bow-window to the great entrance door, it was by no means from pleasure
or interest in the exterior of the Golden Cross, but because Barbara had
confessed that the nineteen-year-old owner of the edifice, who was still
a minor, was also wooing her.

What was the probable value of this stately structure, this aristocratic
imperial abode? How rich its owner was! yet she, the brilliant young
beauty who had grown up in poverty, disdained young Crafft because her
heart did not attract her to him.

So, in this case, faithful Ursel must deceive herself and misjudge the
girl, for the old woman's strangely evasive words had revealed plainly
enough that she did not consider Barbara the right wife for him.

The good people of Ratisbon could not understand this rare creature! Her
artist nature