stranger with a
faltering voice.

"The Frau Gensfleisch," said the woman; "nay, my good friend, the Frau
Gensfleisch has left our village this many a day. Maybe she lives now in
the town, or maybe she is dead; I cannot tell thee which."

The traveller turned away.

Frau Gensfleisch, however, was not dead. Finding that the care of her
little fields and vineyard was more than she was able to manage in her
declining years, she sold her cottage and land, and returned into the
town of Mainz to live, so that she might be near the Father Gottlieb,
who was now the only relation she had left besides her absent son. To
the good Father she could at least talk about Hans, and he was able
sometimes to cheer her fading hopes, by telling her that the day might
yet come when Hans would return to spend the rest of his life with her.
She lived in a dark and narrow street, and seldom went from home except
on certain days, when, as of old, she would take a flask of her ink to
the convent for the use of the monks, who were still, as during the
childhood of Hans Gensfleisch, busied over their endless copying and
writing. It was on the morning of the day on which the traveller we have
spoken of above had inquired after her at her old cottage, that a
message came to her from Father Gottlieb to say that she must come to
the convent with all speed, to hear some tidings of her son, which had
been brought by a traveller from the south. With a beating heart she
went, and from the Father Gottlieb she heard that a learned scribe had
come that day into the town who had known her son in the city of
Strasburg. This scribe had brought with him a most wonderful book, and
all the town was filled with surprise and curiosity to hear that this
volume, which was a copy of the Bible, had been written by one man--the
traveller himself--and that in its production he had used neither pen,
nor style,[2] nor reed, but had _imprinted_ it with ink in some
unknown way, which had caused the writing to be more regular and even,
and plainer to read than that of any manuscript which had ever been seen
or heard of. The whole town was talking of the book, and the wonder of
the people was even greater still when the traveller said that he could
at will produce many such books as this, and that each should be so much
alike the other, that not one letter--not one jot or one tittle of a
letter should be different. Frau Gensfleisch listened in wonder,--but
wonder was lost in