evening in May, it was that he
said to Ann: "Hearken, my treasure, I am surely better! On the day
after tomorrow we will go forth into the sweet Spring, to hear Dame
Nightingale who is singing already, and to see Margery. Oh, out in the
forest breezes blow to heal the sick!"

Yet they went not; two hours later he had departed this life. By ill
fortune at that very time I was at Venice on a matter of business,
and when the tidings came to me that my only beloved brother was dead,
meseemed as though half my being were torn away, aye, and the nobler and
better half; that part which was not content to grieve and care for
none but earthly estate and for all that cometh up and passeth away here
below, but which hath a position in the bliss of another world, where we
ask not only of what use and to what end this or that may be, as I have
ever done in my narrow soul.

When Herdegen's eyes closed in death, my wings were broken as it were;
with him I lost the highest aim and end of all my labors. For five hard
years had I toiled and struggled, often turning night into day, and not
for myself, but for him and his, ever upheld and sped forward by the
sight of his high soul and great happiness. Our grand-uncle Im Hoff
had left me his house and the conduct of his trade, as you have learned
already from Margery's little book; and during my long journeyings many
matters had not been done to my contentment, and the sick old man had
taken out overmuch moneys from the business. A goodly sum came to us
from our parents' estate, and my brother and sister and Cousin Maud were
fain to entrust me with theirs; but how much I had to do in return!

Moreover a great care came upon me from without, by reason that Sir
Franz's kin and heirs refused to repay the moneys for the ransom which
Master Michieli of Venice had laid down, and for which Herdegen and I
had been sureties. Albeit in this matter we had applied to the law, we
might not suffer Michieli to come to loss by reason of his generosity,
so I took upon me the whole debt, and that was a hard matter in those
times and in my case; and the fifteen thousand ducats which were repaid
me by judgment of law, thirty years afterwards, made me small amends,
inasmuch as by that time I had long been wont to reckon with much
greater sums.

I made good my friend's payment of Herdegen's ransom to the last
farthing; yet what pressed me most hardly, so long as my brother lived,
was his housekeeping; few in