tting with the other gentlemen at the table in front of
the tavern. One of the torches threw its light full on his manly face.
Kuni knew that he could not see her in the darkness surrounding
her figure, yet it seemed as though she was meeting the gaze of his
sparkling dark eyes. Now he was speaking. How she longed to know what
he said. Summoning up her courage, she glided along in the shadow of the
wall and sat down behind the oleander bush on the sharp edge of the
tub. No one noticed her, but she was afraid that a fit of coughing might
betray her presence, so she pressed her apron firmly over her lips and
sat straining her ears to listen. In spite of the violent aching of
her foot and the loud rattling in her chest, she thought it a specially
favourable dispensation of Providence that she had found her way here
just at this moment; for Lienhard was still speaking. The others
had asked him to tell them connectedly how the beautiful Katharina
Harsdtirffer had become his wife, in spite of the opposition of her
stern father and though the Honourable Council had punished him for such
insubordination with imprisonment and exile.

He had already related this in detail when Kuni came to listen. Now,
pointing to Wilibald Pirckheimer, who sat opposite, he went on with his
story, describing how, thanks to the mediation of the latter and of the
great artist, Albrecht Durer, he had obtained an audience at Innsbruck
with the Emperor Maximilian, how the sovereign had interceded personally
in behalf of himself and his betrothal, and how, in consequence of this
royal intervention, he had attained the goal of his wishes.

"Our Honourables," he concluded, "now willingly permitted me to
return home, and Hans Harsdtirffer, Katharina's father-Heaven rest his
soul--relinquished his opposition to our marriage. Perhaps he would
have done so earlier, but for the keen antagonism which, owing to their
totally different natures, had arisen between the stern man and my
lighthearted father, and displayed itself in the Council as well as in
all the affairs of life. Not until his old opponent, to whom I owed my
existence, was on his death-bed, did Herr Hans clasp hands with him in
reconciliation, and consent to our betrothal."

"And I know," Wilibald Pirckheimer interrupted, "that among the many
obstacles which his foes placed in his path, and which clouded his
active life, you two, and your loyal love, gave him more light and
greater consolation th