he choir-master had told her what touched her
much about the widowed Magdalis and her two children; and old Ursula
and the master between them contrived that Mother Magdalis should be at
the banquet, hidden behind the tapestry.

And when Gottlieb came close to the great lady, robed in white, with
blue feathery wings, to represent a little angel, and sang her the
Easter greeting, she bent down and folded him in her arms, and kissed
him.

And then once more she asked for his mother, and, to Gottlieb's
surprise and her own, the mother was led forward, and knelt before the
archduchess.

Then the beautiful lady beamed on the mother and the child, and, taking
a chain and jewel from her neck, she clasped it round the boy's neck,
and said, in musical German with a foreign accent:

"Remember, this is not so much a gift as a token and sign that I will
not forget thee and thy mother, and that I look to see thee and hear
thee again, and to be thy friend."

And as she smiled on him, the whole banqueting-hall--indeed, the whole
world--seemed illuminated to the child.

And he said to his mother as they went home:

"Mother, surely God has sent us an angel at last. But, even for the
angels, we will never forget His dear ravens. Wont old Hans be glad?"

And the mother was glad; for she knew that God who giveth grace to the
lowly had indeed blessed the lad, because all his gifts and honors were
transformed, as always in the lowly heart, not into pride, but into
love.

But when the boy ran eagerly to find old Hans, to show him the jewel
and tell him of the princely promises, Hans was nowhere to be found;
not in the hermit's house, where he was to have met them and shared
their little festive meal, nor at his own stall, nor in the hut in
which he slept.

Gottlieb's heart began to sink.

Never had his dear old friend failed to share in any joy of theirs
before.

At length, as he was lingering about the old man's little hut,
wondering, a sad, silent company came bearing slowly and tenderly a
heavy burden, which at last they laid on Hans' poor straw pallet.

It was poor Hans himself, bruised and crushed and wounded in his
struggles to press through the crowd to see his darling, his poor
crooked limbs broken and unable to move any more.

But the face was untouched, and when they had laid him on the couch,
and the languid eyes opened and rested on the beloved face of the child
bending over him bathed in tears, a light came ove