her. Her soul was moved by the same feelings, only there was now a touch
of bitterness. One great advantage of her temperament, it is true, had
vanished with her physical beauty and strength--the capacity to hope for
happiness and joy. Perhaps it would never return; an oppressive feeling
of guilt, usually foreign to her careless nature, had oppressed her ever
since she had heard recently in the convent that the child on whom she
had called down death and destruction was lying hopelessly ill, and
would scarcely live till the joyous Whitsuntide.

This now came back to her mind. The jubilant sense of freedom deserted
her; she walked thoughtfully on until she reached the neighbourhood of
Jacob Fugger's house.

A long funeral procession was moving slowly toward her. Some very
exalted and aristocratic person must be taking the journey to the grave,
for it was headed by all the clergy in the city. Choristers, in the most
elaborate dress, swinging incense holders by delicate metal chains and
bearing lanterns on long poles, surrounded the lofty cross.

Every one of distinction in Augsburg, all the children who attended
school, and all the members of the various ecclesiastical orders and
guilds in the city marched before the bier. Kuni had never seen such a
funeral procession. Perhaps the one she witnessed in Milan, when a great
nobleman was buried, was longer, but in this every individual seemed to
feel genuine grief. Even the schoolboys who, on such solemn occasions,
usually play all sorts of secret pranks, walked as mournfully as if each
had lost some relative who was specially dear to him. Among the girls
there were few whose rosy cheeks were not constantly wet with tears.

From the first Kuni had believed that she knew who was being borne to
the grave. Now she heard several women whispering near her mention
the name of Juliane Peutinger. A pale-faced gold embroiderer, who had
recently bordered a gala dress with leaves and tendrils for the dead
girl's sister, described, sobbing, the severe suffering amid which this
fairest blossom of Augsburg girlhood had withered ere death finally
broke the slender stem.

Suddenly she stopped; a cry of mingled astonishment, lamentation, and
delight, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, ran through the crowd
which had gathered along the sides of the street.

The bier was in sight.

Twelve youths bore the framework, covered with a richly embroidered
blue cloth, on which the coffin rest