hand: roses,
auriculas, pinks and pansies; and whosoever went past the house in
a boat could hear mirth within and the voice of song. For the Spiesz
children had a fine ear for music, both from their grandsire and their
mother, and sweet, clear, bell-like voices. My Ann was the queen of them
all, and her nightingale's throat drew even Herdegen to her with great
power.

Only one of the scribe's children, little Mario, was shut out from the
world of sound, for he was a deaf-mute born; and when Ann tarried under
our roof, rarely indeed and for but a short while, her stay was brief
for his sake; for she tended him with such care and love as though she
had been his own mother. Albeit she thereby was put to much pains, these
were as nothing to the heartfelt joys which the love and good speed of
this child brought her; for notwithstanding he was thus born to sorrow,
by his sister's faithful care he grew a happy and thankful creature.
Ofttimes my Cousin Maud was witness to her teaching of her little
brother, and all Ann did for the child seemed to her so pious and so
wonderful, that it broke down the last bar that stood in the way of our
close fellowship. And Ann's well-favored mother likewise won my cousin's
good graces, albeit she was swift to mark that the Italian lady
could fall in but ill with German ways, and in especial with those
of Nuremberg, and was ever ready to let Ann bear the burthen of the
household.

All our closest friends, and foremost of these my worshipful godfather
Uncle Christian Pfinzing, ere long truly loved my little Ann; and of
all our fellows I knew of only one who was ill-disposed towards her,
and that was Ursula Tetzel, who marked, with ill-cloaked wrath, that my
brother Herdegen cared less and less for her, and did Ann many a little
courtesy wherewith he had formerly favored her. She could not dissemble
her anger, and when my eldest brother waited on Ann on her name day
with the 'pueri' to give her a 'serenata' on the water, whereas, a year
agone, he had done Ursula the like honor, she fell upon my friend in
our garden with such fierce and cruel words that my cousin had to come
betwixt them, and then to temper my great wrath by saying that Ursula
was a motherless child, whose hasty ways had never been bridled by a
loving hand.

As I mind me now of those days I do so with heartfelt thankfulness and
joy. To be sure it but ill-pleased our grand-uncle and guardian, the
knight Im Hoff, that Cousin M