ed as though Fate had blessed the modest rooms in Red Cock Street
with its most precious treasures.

It might be either Wolf's return, the hopes for his daughter which
were associated with it in the crippled old warrior's heart, or the
unexpected costly gifts, to which Wolf had added for his old friend a
Netherland drinking vessel in the form of a silver ship, which had moved
the old gentleman so deeply, but at any rate he allowed himself to be
tempted into an act of extravagance, and, in an outburst of good spirits
which he had not felt for a long time, he promised Wolf to fetch
from the cellar one of the jugs of wine which he kept there for his
daughter's wedding.

"Over this liquid we will open our hearts freely to each other, my boy,"
he said. "The night is still long, and even at the Emperor's court there
is nothing better to be tasted. My dead mother used to say that there
are always more good things in a poor family which was once rich than in
a rich one which was formerly poor."

CHAPTER V.

The captain limped out into the cellar, but Barbara was already standing
behind the table again, moving the irons.

"When I am rich," she exclaimed, in reply to Wolf, who asked her to stop
her work in this happy hour and share the delicious wine with him and
her father, "I shall shun such maid-servant's business. But what else
can be done? We have less money than we need to keep up our position,
and that must be remedied. Besides, a neatly crimped ruff is necessary
if a poor girl like me is to stand beside the others in the singing
rehearsal early to-morrow morning. Poor folks are alike everywhere,
and, so long as I can do no better--but luck will come to me, too, some
day--this right hand must be my maid. Let it alone, or my iron will burn
your fingers!"

This threat was very nearly fulfilled, for Wolf had caught her right
hand to hold it firmly while he at last compelled her to hear that his
future destiny depended upon her decision.

How much easier he had expected to find the wooing! Yet how could it
be otherwise? Every young man in Ratisbon was probably courting this
peerless creature. No doubt she had already rebuffed many another as
sharply as she had just prevented him from seizing her hand. If her
manner had grown more independent, she had learned to defend herself
cleverly.

He would first try to assail her heart with words, and they were at his
disposal in black and white. He had placed in the litt