ce it had to be
specially ordered in the manufactory and strengthened inside with stiff
card-board, so that it projected above the head like a steeple-hat;
just above the hollow of the neck they wore a bow, which owing to its
breadth stuck out far beyond the shoulders, and resembled the outspread
wings of an eagle; and along the temples and about the ears tiny curls
crept out from beneath the hood. And strange to say, many a fine
Bamberg beauty looked quite charming in this head-covering.

It formed a very picturesque sight to stand behind a funeral procession
and watch it set itself in motion. It is the custom in Bamberg for the
burghers to be invited to attend the funeral procession of a deceased
person by the so-called "death-woman," who in a croaking voice and in
the name of the deceased screams out her invitation in the street, in
front of the house of the persons she is inviting; as, for instance,
"Herr so-and-so, or Frau so-and-so, beg you to pay them the last
honours." The good gossips and the young maidens, who in general seldom
get out into the open air, fail not to put in an appearance in great
numbers; and when the troop of women sets itself in motion and the wind
catches the immense ends of the bows, it can be likened to nothing else
but a huge flock of black ravens or eagles suddenly startled and just
beginning their rustling flight.

The indulgent reader is therefore requested not to picture pretty Nanni
in any other head-dress except a neat little Erlangen hood.

However objectionable it was to Master Wacht that Jonathan was to
belong to a class which he hated, he did not by any means make the boy,
or later the youth, feel the consequences of his displeasure. Rather he
was always very pleased to see the good quiet Jonathan look in after
his day's work was done, to spend the evening with his daughters and
old Barbara. But then Jonathan also wrote the finest hand that could
be seen anywhere; and it afforded Master Wacht no little joy, for
he was uncommonly fond of good handwriting, when his Nanni, whose
writing-master Jonathan had installed himself to be, began gradually
after a time to write the same elegant hand as her master.

In the evening Master Wacht himself was either busy in his own
work-room, or, as was often the case, he visited a beer-house, where
he met with his fellow-craftsmen and the gentlemen of the council, and
in his way enlivened the company with his own rare wit. Meanwhile in
the h