n a
schoolmate of her suitor's, and of his brother the very reverend lord
Bishop, and he had thought highly of Master Ulman. This it was gave
her strength to follow the prompting of her heart. In this way did the
mother try to move her child to look with favor on the desire of her
fiery Italian heart, now shame-faced and coaxing, and anon with tears in
her eyes; and albeit the widow was past five and thirty and her suitor
nigh upon fifty, yet no man seeing the pair together would have made
sport of their love. The Venice lady had lost so little of her youthful
beauty and charms that it was in truth a marvel; and as to Master
Pernhart, he was not a man to be overlooked, even among many.

As he was at this time he might be taken for the very pattern of a
stalwart and upright German mastercraftsman; nay, nor would a knight's
harness of mail have ill-beseemed him. Or ever he had thought of
paying court to Mistress Giovanna I had heard the prebendary Master
von Hellfeld speak of Pernhart as a right good fellow, of whom the city
might be proud; and he then spoke likewise of Master Ulman's brother,
who had become a servant of the Holy Church, and while yet a young man
had been raised to the dignity of a bishop.

When the great schism had come to a happy ending, and one Head, instead
of three, ruled the Church, Pope Martin V. had chosen him to sit in
his council and kept him at Rome, where he was one of the powers of the
Curia.

Albeit his good German name of Pernhart was now changed to Bernardi,
he had not ceased to love his native town and his own kin, and had so
largely added to the wealth and ease of his own mother and his only
brother that the coppersmith had been able to build himself a dwelling
little behind those of the noble citizens. He had been forlorn in his
great house of late, but no such cause as that was needed to move him
to cast his eye on the fair widow of his very reverend brother's best
friend.

While Ann was away in the forest Mistress Giovanna had let Pernhart into
the secret of her daughter's betrothal to Herdegen, and so soon as the
young maid was at home again he had spoken to her of the matter, telling
her, in few but hearty words, that she would be ever welcome to his
house and there fill the place of his lost Gertrude; but that if she was
fain to wed an honest man, he would make it his business to provide her
outfit.

These things, and much more, inclined me in his favor, little as I
desired