ply moved, at last swung himself into the saddle,
commending her to the protection of the gracious Virgin. It was not
wholly easy for him to part with her, but the prospect of riding out
into the world with a full purse, highly honoured by his imperial
master, gratified the old adventure-loving heart so much that he could
feel no genuine sympathy. Too honest to feign an emotion which he did
not experience, he behaved accordingly; and, besides, he was sure of
leaving his child in the best care as in her earlier years, when, glad
to leave the dull city, business, and his arrogant, never-satisfied wife
behind, he had gone with a light heart to war.

While pressing the horse's flanks between his legs and forcing the
spirited animal, which went round and round with him in a circle, to
obedience, he waved his new travelling hat; but Barbara, meanwhile, was
thinking that he could only leave her with his mind thus free from care
because she was deceiving him, and, as her eyes rested on her father's
wounded limb projecting stiffly into the air, bitter grief overwhelmed
her.

How often the old wounds caused him pain! Other little infirmities, too,
tortured him. Who would bind them up on the journey? who would give him
the medicine which afforded relief?

Then pity affected her more deeply than ever before, and it was with
difficulty that she forced back the rising tears. Her father might
perhaps have noticed them, for one groom carried a torch, and the
one-eyed maid's lantern was shining directly into her face.

But while she was struggling not to weep aloud, emotion and anxiety for
the old man who, through her fault, would be exposed to so much danger,
extorted the cry: "Take care of him, Herr Pyramus! I will be grateful to
you."

"That shall be a promise, lovely, ungracious maiden," the recruiting
officer quickly answered. But the old man was already waving his
hat again, his horse dashed upon the Haidplatz at a gallop, and his
companion, with gallant bearing, followed.

Barbara had then gone back into the house, and the maid-servant lighted
her upstairs.

It had become perfectly dark in her rooms, and the solitude and silence
there oppressed her like a hundredweight burden. Besides, terrible
thoughts had assailed her, showing her herself in want and shame,
despised, disdained, begging for a morsel of bread, and her father under
his fallen horse, on his lonely, couch of pain, in his coffin.

Then her stay in her lonel