pers certainly do not rank lowest on the list. We who
hold ourselves entitled to bear arms, to ride in tournaments, and take
office in the Church, and who have a right to call ourselves nobles and
patricians, are all more or less kith and kin. Wherever in Nuremberg
there was a fine house we could find there an uncle and aunt, cousins
and kinsmen, or at least godparents, and good friends of our deceased
parents. Wherever one of them might chance to meet us, even if it were
in the street, he would say: "Poor little orphans! God be good to the
fatherless!" and tears would sparkle in the eyes of many a kindhearted
woman. Even the gentlemen of the Council--for most of the elders of our
friends were members of it--would stroke my fair hair and look at me as
pitifully as though I were some poor sinner for whom there could be no
mercy in the eyes of the judges of a court of justice.

Why was it that men deemed me so unfortunate when I knew no sorrow and
my heart was as gay as a singing bird? I could not ask cousin Maud, for
she was sorely troubled if I had but a finger-ache, and how could I tell
her that I was such a miserable creature in the eyes of other folks? But
I presently found out for myself why and wherefore they pitied me; for
seven who called me fatherless, seventy would speak of me as motherless
when they addressed me with pity. Our misfortune was that we had no
mother. But was there not Cousin Maud, and was not she as good as any
mother? To be sure she was only a cousin, and she must lack something of
what a real mother feels.

And though I was but a heedless, foolish child I kept my eyes open and
began to look about me. I took no one into the secret but my brothers,
and though my elder brother chid me, and bid me only be thankful to our
cousin for all her goodness, I nevertheless began to watch and learn.

There were a number of children at the Stromers' house--the Golden Rose
was its name--and they were still happy in having their mother. She was
a very cheerful young woman, as plump as a cherry, and pink and white
like blood on snow; and she never fixed her gaze on me as others did,
but would frolic with me or scold me sharply when I did any wrong. At
the Muffels, on the contrary, the mistress was dead, and the master
had not long after brought home another mother to his little ones, a
stepmother, Susan, who was my maid, was wont to call her; and such a
mother was no more a real mother than our good cousin--I k