the best schoolmaster
The not over-strong thread of my good patience
They who will, can
Though thou lose all thou deemest thy happiness
Vagabond knaves had already been put to the torture
We each and all are waiting
Were we not one and all born fools
When men-children deem maids to be weak and unfit for true sport
Woman who might win the love of a highly-gifted soul (Pays for it)
Wonder we leave for the most part to children and fools

BARBARA BLOMBERG

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.

Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford

CHAPTER I.

The sun sometimes shone brightly upon the little round panes of the
ancient building, the Golden Cross, on the northern side of the square,
which the people of Ratisbon call "on the moor"; sometimes it was veiled
by gray clouds. A party of nobles, ecclesiastics, and knights belonging
to the Emperor's train were just coming out. The spring breeze banged
behind them the door of the little entrance for pedestrians close beside
the large main gateway.

The courtiers and ladies who were in the chapel at the right of the
corridor started. "April weather!" growled the corporal of the Imperial
Halberdiers to the comrade with whom he was keeping; guard at the foot of
the staircase leading to the apartments of Charles V, in the second story
of the huge old house.

"St. Peter's day," replied the other, a Catalonian. "At my home fresh
strawberries are now growing in the open air and roses are blooming in
the gardens. Take it all in all, it's better to be dead in Barcelona than
alive in this accursed land of heretics!"

"Come, come," replied the other, "life is life! 'A live dog is better
than a dead king,' says a proverb in my country."

"And it is right, too," replied the Spaniard. "But ever since we came
here our master's face looks as if imperial life didn't taste exactly
like mulled wine, either."

The Netherlander lowered his halberd and answered his companion's words
first with a heavy sigh, and then with the remark: "Bad weather upstairs
as well as down--the very worst! I've been in the service thirteen years,
but I never saw him like this, not even after the defeat in Algiers. That
means we must keep a good lookout. Present halberds! Some one is coming
down."

Both quickly assumed a more erect attitude, but the Spaniard whispered to
his comrade: "It isn't he. His step hasn't sounded like that since the
gout--"

"Q