s good to my ears and to my uncle Conrad's; but the
best of all was that already, by the end of a week or two, Ann seemed
likely to supplant me wholly in the love my aunt had erewhile shown to
me; Ann thenceforth was diligent in waiting on the sick lady, and such
loving duty won her more and more of my uncle's love, who found his
weakly, suffering wife much on his hands, and that in the plainest sense
of the words, since, whenever he might be at home, she would allow no
other creature to lift her from one spot to another.

Now, whereas Uncle Conrad had taught Ann to mark the divers voices of
the forest, so did she open my eyes to the many virtues of my aunt,
which, heretofore, I had been wont to veil from my own sight out of
wrath at her hardness to my cousin Gotz.

Ann, in her compassion and thankfulness, had truly learnt to love her,
and she now led me to perceive that she was in many ways a right wise
and good woman. Her low, sheltered couch in the peaceful chimney-corner
was, as it were, the centre of a wide net, and she herself the
spider-wife who had spun it, for in truth her good counsel stretched
forth over the whole range of forest, and over all her husband's rough
henchmen. She knew the name of every child in the furthest warders'
huts, and never did she suffer one of the forest folks to die unholpen.
She was, indeed, forced to see with other eyes and give with other hands
than her own, and notwithstanding this she ever gave help where it was
most needed, since she chose her messengers well and lent an ear to all
who sought her.

She soon found work for us, making us do many a Samaritan-task; and many
a time have we marvelled to mark the skill with which she wove her web,
and the wisdom coupled with her open-handed bounty.

No one else could have found a place in the great books which she filled
with her records; but to her they were so clear that the craft of the
most cunning was put to shame when she looked into them. Never a
soul, whether master or man, said her nay in the lightest thing, to my
knowledge, and this was a plea for the one fault which had hitherto set
me against her.

Everything here was new to Ann; and what could be more delightful,
what could give me greater joy than to be able to show all that was
noteworthy and pleasant, and to me well-known, to a well-beloved friend,
and to tell her the use and end of each thing. In this two men were
ever ready to help me: Uncle Conrad and the young