ers, who, carved
in stone, now supported the treasure their hands had wrought. Surely
this was the crowning summit of human ambition--to live thus forever in
the house of God, and before the eyes of men, a part of the very work
which had ennobled the artist's life. Ah! if he, the despised humpback,
could but descend to posterity immortalized by the labor of his hands.
What to the dreaming lad was the picture of Adam Krafft dying in a
hospital, poor, unfriended, and alone, in the midst of a city his genius
had enriched? What was it to him that Nuremberg, which now heaped honors
on the dead, had denied bread to the living? Such bitter truths come not
to the young. They are the heritage of age, and Gabriel was but a boy,
with all a boy's fond hopes and aspirations. Often as he studied the
graceful beauty of the Sacrament House, where, cut in the pure white
stone, he saw the Last Supper and Christ blessing little children, he
wondered whether among those Jewish boys and girls was one who, deformed
and repulsive to the eye, yet felt the Saviour's loving touch and was
comforted.

A few more years rolled by, and each succeeding spring saw Kala taller
and prettier, and Gabriel working harder still at his laborious art. Not
so engrossed, however, but that he knew that Kala was fair, and that
when her soft fingers touched his a swift and sudden fire leaped through
his heart. Kala's beauty lurked in his dreams by night and in his long,
solitary days of toil, and became the motive power of all his best
endeavors. If he should gain wealth, it would be but to lay it at her
feet. If he, the desolate waif, should win fame and distinction, it
would be but to gild her name with his. Surely these things must be
some recompense in a woman's eyes for a pale face and a stunted form;
and Gabriel, lost in foolish dreams, worked on.

Sigmund Wahnschaffe, too, had grown into early manhood and had adopted
his father's calling. Strong arms were as useful in their way as a
creative brain, and if Sigmund could never be an artist like Peter
Vischer, he promised at least to make an excellent workman. People said
he was the handsomest young artisan in Nuremberg, with his dark skin
bronzed by the fires among which he labored, and his black eyes
sparkling with a keen and merry light. Times had changed since the day
he pushed little Kala into the mud, and he looked upon her now as some
frail and delicate blossom, that to handle would be desecration. Yet