l
all this end?" again and again.

Nay, nor did Ursula sleep; and through the boarded wall I could not fail
to hear well-nigh every word of the prayers in which she entreated her
patron saint, beseeching her fervently to grant her to be loved by
Herdegen, whose heart from his youth up had by right been hers alone, and
invoking ruin on the false wench who had dared to rob her of that
treasure.

I was right frightened to hear this and, in truth, for the first time I
felt honest pity for Ursula.

[End of the original Volume One of the print edition]

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Love which is able and ready to endure all things
Wonder we leave for the most part to children and fools

MARGERY

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.

CHAPTER I.

The Imperial Diet in Nuremberg!--the Imperial Advent!

The next day their Majesties were to enter into the town, and with them
my Hans.

A messenger had brought the tidings, and now we must use all diligence;
Ann and Elsa and I, with one and twenty more, had been chosen among all
the daughters of the worshipful gentlemen of the council, to go forth to
greet the Emperor and Empress with flowers and a discourse. This Ursula
was to speak, by reason that she was mistress of all such arts; likewise
was she by birth the chiefest of us all, inasmuch as that her late
departed mother was daughter to the great Reynmar, lord of Sulzbach. Nor
need Ann and I seek far for the flowers. The Hallers' garden had not its
like in all Nuremberg, and my dear parents-in-law had promised that we
should pluck all we needed for our posies.

Or ever I mounted my horse, I had tidings that Herdegen and Junker
Henning had, last evening, come to bitter strife, nay, well-nigh to
bloodshed; for that when my brother had sung the ditty in praise of one
Elselein and the other had called upon him to put in the name of Ann,
Herdegen had cried: "An if you mean red-haired Ann, the tapster wench at
the Blue Pike, well and good!" Whereupon the Junker sprang up and flung
the tankard he had just emptied at Herdegen's head. Herdegen had nimbly
ducked, and had rushed on the drunken fellow sword in hand; but Duke
Rumpold had put a word in, and by this morning Junker Henning seemed to
have forgotten the matter. In Brandenburg, verily, such frays were common
at the drinking-bouts of the lords and gentlemen, and by dawn all offence
given over-night in their cups was wiped out of mind.

My brother