her hair and eyes, and said
further: "Cling fast to your love, my darling. You have nothing else
than love, and without it life is shallow indeed, is sheer emptiness.
You will never find it in the Magister's arms, and that your heart is of
a certainty, not set on marrying a well-to-do man at any cost...."

But she did not end her speech, inasmuch as Ann imploringly raised her
great eyes in mild reproach, as though to defend herself from some hurt.
So my aunt comforted her with a few kind words, and then went on to
admonish her as follows: "Verily it is not love you lack, but patient
trust. I have heard from Margery here what bitter disappointments you
have suffered. And it is hard indeed to the stricken heart to look for
a new spring for the withered harvest of joy. But look you at my good
husband. He ceases not from sowing acorns, albeit he knows that it will
never be vouchsafed to him to see them grown to fine trees, or to earn
any profit from them. Do you likewise learn to possess your soul in
patience; and do not forget that, if Herdegen is lost, the question will
be put to you: 'Did you hold out a hand to him while it was yet time
to save him, or did you withdraw from him your love and favor in
faint-hearted impatience at the very first blow?'"

The last words fell in solemn earnest from my aunt's lips, and struck
Ann to the heart; she confessed that she had many times said the same
things to her self, but then maiden pride had swelled up in her and had
forbidden her to lend an ear to the warning voice; and nevertheless
none had spoken so often or so loudly in her soul, so that her heart's
deepest yearning responded to what her friend had said.

"Then do its bidding," said my aunt eagerly, and I said the same; and
Ann, being not merely overruled but likewise convinced, yielded and
confessed that, even as Master Peter's wife, she could never have slain
the old love, and declared herself ready to renounce her pride and
wrath.

Thus had my aunt's faithful love preserved her from sin, and gladly
did I consent to her brave spirit when she said to Ann: "You must save
yourself for that skittle-witted wight in Paris, child; for none other
than he can make you rightly happy, nor can he be happy with any other
woman than my true and faithful darling!"

Ann covered my aunt's hands with kisses, and the words flowed heartily
and gaily from her lips as she cried: "Yes, yes, yes! It is so! And if
he beat me and scorned me, i