th unshaken courage the persistent efforts of the Church, which
embittered her life with many a hard trial, when, though herself
trained up in the Catholic religion, she had married the Protestant
Wacht, and shortly before had gone over to this faith in Augsburg,
impelled thereto by the pure enthusiasm of conviction. All this now
passed through Master Wacht's mind; and as he thought upon the
sentiments he had felt when he led the maiden to the altar, the warm
tears ran down his cheeks. Nanni was her mother over again; Wacht loved
the child with an intensity of affection that was quite unparalleled,
and this fact was of itself more than enough to make him reject as
abominable, nay, as fiendishly cruel, any attempt to separate the
lovers that appeared in the remotest degree to savour of violence.
When, on the other hand, he reflected upon the whole course of
Jonathan's previous life, he was obliged to admit that all the virtues
of a good, industrious, and modest youth could not easily be so happily
united in another as they were in Jonathan, albeit his handsome
expressive face bore the impress of traits which were perhaps a little
too soft, and almost effeminate, and his diminutive and weak but
elegant bodily frame bespoke a tender intellectual spirit. When he
reflected further that the two children had always been together, and
how evident had been their mutual liking for each other, he was really
puzzled to understand how it was that he had not expected beforehand
what had now really happened, and so could have taken precautions in
time. Now it was too late.

He was urged on through the hills by a mood of mind which set his whole
being in a turmoil of distraction; such a state as this he had hitherto
never experienced, and he was inclined to take it for a seduction of
Satan, since several thoughts arose in his mind which in the very next
minute he could not help regarding as diabolical. He could not recover
his self-composure, still less form any decisive plan of action. The
sun was beginning to set when he reached the village of Buch;[13]
turning into the hotel, he ordered something good to eat and a bottle
of excellent beer from the rock.[14]

"Ah! a very fine evening! Ah! what a remarkable occurrence to see our
good Master Wacht here in beautiful Buch, on this glorious Sunday
evening. To tell you the truth, I can hardly believe my eyes. Your
respected family is, I presume, somewhere else in the country." Thus
was M