hat her small thin person was like
nothing else than a huge, shapeless, many-coated onion. Her little face
peeped out of the veils and kerchiefs that wrapped her head, like a
half-moon out of thick clouds; but her bright eyes shone kindly on me as
she cried: "Come, haste to your breakfast, lie-a-bed! I thought to find
you fitted and ready, and you are keeping the men waiting as though it
were an every-day matter that we should travel together."

"Aye, aye! She is bent on the journey," my uncle said with a groan, as
he cast a loving glance at his frail wife and raised his folded hands
to Heaven. "Well, chaplain, miracles happen even in our days!" And his
Reverence, silent as he was, this time had an answer ready, saying with
hearty feeling: "The loving heart of a brave woman has at all times been
able to work miracles."

"Amen," said my uncle, pressing his lips on the top of his wife's
muffled head.

Howbeit I remembered our talk yesternight, and the sleigh I had seen
being harnessed; indeed, the look alone which the unwonted traveller
cast on me was enough to tell me what my sickly aunt purposed to do for
the sake of Ann. Then something came upon me, I know not what; with a
passion all unlike that of yesterdayeve, I fell on my knees and kissed
her as a child whose mother has made it a Christmas gift of what it most
loves and wishes to have, while my lips were pressed to her eyes, brow,
and cheeks, wherever the wrappings covered them not, and she cried out:

"Leave me, leave me, crazy child! You are choking me. What great matter
is it after all? One woman will ride through the snow to Nuremberg for
the sake of a chat with another, and who turns his head to look at her?
Now, foolish wench, let me be. What a to-do for nothing at all!"

How I ate my porridge in the winking of an eye, and then sprang into
the sleigh, I scarce could tell, and in truth I marked little of our
departing; mine eyes were over full of tears. Packed right close to my
aunt, whereas she filled three-fourths of the seat, I flew with her over
the snow; nor did we need any great following on horseback to bear us
company, inasmuch as my uncle rode on in front, and the Buchenauers and
Steinbachers and other highway robbers who made the roads unsafe about
Nuremberg, all lived in peace with uncle Waldstromer for the sake of the
shooting.

When we got into the town, and I bid the rider take us to the
Schopperhof, my aunt said: "No, to Ulman Pernhart's h