for me to pay for it!"

"Have you gained booty, Hans?"

"Better must come; but I'm faring tolerably well. Nothing but feasting!
Three of us came here from Venice through Lombardy, by ship from Genoa
to Barcelona, and thence through this barren, stony country here to
Madrid."

"To take service?"

"No, indeed. I'm satisfied with my company and regiment. We brought
some pictures here, painted by the great master, Titian, whose fame must
surely have reached you. See this little purse! hear its jingle--it's
all gold! If any one calls King Philip a niggard again, I'll knock his
teeth down his throat."

"Good tidings, good reward!" laughed Moor. "Have you had board and
lodging too?"

"A bed fit for the Roman Emperor,--and as for the rest?--I told you,
nothing but feasting. Unluckily, the fun will be all over to-night, but
to go without paying my respects to you.... Zounds! is that the little
fellow--the Hop-o'my-Thumb-who pressed forward to the muster-table at
Emmendingen?"

"Certainly, certainly."

"Zounds, he has grown. We'll gladly enlist you now, young sir. Can you
remember me?"

"Of course I do," replied Ulrich. "You sang the song about 'good
fortune.'"

"Have you recollected that?" asked the lansquenet. "Foolish stuff!
Believe it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great
sorrow and poverty, just to warm my heart. Now I'm prosperous, and can
rarely succeed in writing a verse. Fires are not needed in summer."

"Where have you been lodged?"

"Here in the 'old cat.' That's a good name for this Goliath's palace."

When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
artist went to the city alone.

At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio,
and instantly noticed the change Sophonisba's portrait had undergone.

Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.

The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
pausing in her scrutiny to ask: "And you, you painted this--without the
master?"

Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: "I suppose he thinks it
is my own work; and yet--I can't understand it."

"But I can," she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the
portrait.

At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at
him with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost
depths