this matter.

Hence it was a boon indeed to me that I had my Ann for a friend, and
could pour out to her all that filled my young soul with fears. How our
cheeks would burn when many a time we spoke of the love which was the
bond between Gotz and his fair Gertrude. To us, indeed, it was as yet a
mystery, but that it was sweet and full of joy we deemed a certainty.
We would have been fain to cry out to the Emperor and the world to take
arms against the ruthless parents who were minded to tread so holy a
blossom in the dust; but since this was not in our power we had dreams
of essaying to touch the heart of my forest aunt, for she had but
that one son and no daughter to make her glad, and I had ever been her
favorite.

Thus passed many weeks, and one morning, when I came forth from school,
I found Gotz with Cousin Maud who had been speaking with him, and her
eyes were wet with tears; and I heard him cry out:

"It is in my mother's power to drive me to misery and ruin; but no power
in heaven or on earth can drive me to break the oath and forswear the
faith I have sworn!"

And his cheeks were red, and I had never seen him look so great and
tall.

Then, when he saw me, he held out both hands to me in his frank, loving
way, and I took them with all my heart. At this he looked into my eyes
which were full of tears, and he drew me hastily to him and kissed me
on my brow for the first time in all his life, with strange passion; and
without another word he ran out of the house-door into the street. My
cousin gazed after him, shaking her head sadly and wiping her eyes;
but when I asked her what was wrong with my cousin she would give me no
tidings of the matter.

The next day we should have gone out to the forest, but we remained at
home; Aunt Jacoba would see no one. Her son had turned his back on his
parents' dwelling, and had gone out as a stranger among strangers. And
this was the first sore grief sent by Heaven on my young heart.

CHAPTER IV.

Many of the fairest memories of my childhood are linked with the house
where Ann's parents dwelt. It was indeed but a simple home and not to
be named with ours--the Schopperhof--for greatness or for riches; but it
was a snug nest, and in divers ways so unlike ever another that it was
full of pleasures for a child.

Master Spiesz, Ann's father, had been bidden from Venice, where he had
been in the service of the Mendel's merchant house, to become head clerk
in Nuremberg