in its cage, and to call to
mind, one by one, all our earthly possessions, and to reckon at how we
might attain to selling it for gold. The whole sum was not much to
comfort us, for her worldly estate, like that of the Waldstromers, was in
land, and in these days of peril from the Hussites it was hard enough to
sell landed property, and her best portion was in meads and pasture and a
few vineyards near Wurzburg.

It was from the first her fixed intent, as though it were a matter of
course, to give everything she had, down to her jewels; and whereas she
conceived, and rightly, that for Herdegen's sake I should be like-minded,
she asked me no questions but added to it in her mind, the Schopper
jewels which had come to me from my father and mother, and then began to
count and reckon. It might perchance come to so much as eleven thousand
sequins if we sold all we had to sell; yet our inheritance lay in
Chancery, and, as she knew full well, not a farthing thereof might be
given up but with the full and well-proven authority of Herdegen and
Kunz. Nor might I even have that which was mine own, by reason that our
inheritance had never been shared, and our houses and lands had not been
valued at a price. Thus I must have long patience or ever I came by my
own; all the more so whereas the gentlemen of the Chancery were required
to answer for the wealth of orphans in their keeping with their own.

Hereupon we again thought of my grand-uncle, and Cousin Maud declared
that he would of a certainty be ready to pay half the required ransom for
a purpose so pleasing in the eyes of God, and that the other half might
be raised by the help of our friends. Then she was fain to think of the
future. And the longer she did so, even when Ann had come to us and had
been told all our tidings, the better cheer she showed; nay, it might
have been conceived that it would be a far more easy and delightful
matter to live in narrow poverty than in superfluous riches, and
thereupon she put me in mind how that many a time, when the men-folks
were away from home, she and I had been content to make good cheer with
some sweet porridge, and had very gladly dined without flesh-meat, which
was so costly. We should be free from the vexation of so many serving-men
and wenches; and whereas of late she had been forced to turn Brigitta out
of the house, had she not herself scarce escaped a fever from sheer worry
of mind. Susan would ever be true to us; she would be