d with you and loved you in "your" mother's stead, and
taught you to fold your little hands in prayer and led you out for air
walking by your side. Your mother had heeded it not; but then, when she
bloomed forth in new and wondrous beauty, and I beheld that Hans Koler
and the Knight Sir Henning von Beust, who had likewise remained unwed,
were again her suitors, the old love woke up in my heart; and one fair
May evening, out in the forest, the question rose to my lips whether she
could not grant me the right to call you indeed my children before all
the world, and her. . . .

But to what end touch the wound which to this day is scarce healed?

In this world and the next she would never be any man's but his to whom
her heart's great and only love had been given. But from that evening
forth I, the rejected suitor, must suffer that you children should no
longer call me father, but Uncle Kunz; and when afterwards it came to be
dear little uncle you may believe that I was thankful. She no less
rejected the suit of Koler and of von Beust; but the last-named gentleman
made up for his dismissal by marrying a noble damsel of Brandenburg. At a
later time when he came to Nuremberg he was made welcome by Margery, and
then, meeting with Ann once more, he showed himself to be still so
youthful and duteous in his service to her, in despite of her grey hairs,
that for certain it was well for his happiness at home that he should
have come without his wife.

Not long after Ann's rejection I confessed to Margery what had befallen,
and when she heard it, she cast her arms about my neck and cried: "Why,
ne'er content, must you crave a new home and family? Are not two warm
hearths yours to sit at, and the love and care of two faithful
house-wives; and are you not the father and counsellor, not alone of your
nephews and nieces, but of their parents likewise?" All this she said in
an overflow of sisterly love; and if it comforted me, as I here make
record of it, by reason that I sorely needed such good words, if I here
recall how sad life often seemed to me.

Nay, nay! It was sweet, heavenly sweet, and worthy of all thanksgiving
that I, who of the three Schopper links was so far the most humbly
gifted, was suffered by Fate to be of some use to the other two, and even
to their children and grandchildren, and to help in adding to their
well-being. In this--insomuch I may say with pride--in this I have had
all good-speed; thus my life's labor h