-I have nothing else. So perishes one
heartstring," said the old man.

"What will it bring, father?" asked the girl.

"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction it
will go for little or nothing."

"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of
your life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain
behind."

"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the
hammer. We must pay what we can."

"My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help.
Let us not lose heart."

"She cannot devise a miracle that will turn NOTHING into eight thousand
gold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace."

"She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know she
will."

Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair
where he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his
beloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the
aftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and
gently woke him, saying--

"My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has she
appeared to me in my dreams, and said, 'Go to the Herr Givenaught, go to
the Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid.' There, did I not tell you
she would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin!"

Sad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh.

"Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon as
to the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. THEY bid
on books writ in the learned tongues!--they can scarce read their own."

But Hildegarde's faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she was
on her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird.

Meantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early
breakfast in the former's castle--the Sparrow's Nest--and flavoring
it with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each other
which almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they
could not touch without calling each other hard names--and yet it was
the subject which they oftenest touched upon.

"I tell you," said Givenaught, "you will beggar yourself yet with your
insane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and
worthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish
custom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying
to me about these secret be