ng. We promised to procure beds and bedding in
Bruneck, and arranged to take possession of our new quarters on the
following morning.

I will not enter into the rashness of our promise respecting the
bedsteads, merely hinting at the difficulties and complications which
beset us. Some of these can be imagined when it is known that, firstly,
there proved not to be an upholsterer, nor even a seller of old
furniture, at Bruneck; and that, secondly, the officers and soldiers of
the garrison now quartered there occupied by night every available spare
bed in the township. So it seemed until in our embarrassment the
landlady of the Post arose from her bed to help us to procure some. The
interview ended again with the prudent advice, "Go to Frau Sieger." We
went, and that incomparable lady, who bore us no malice for refusing her
rooms, generously provided for a small sum three bedsteads and an
amazing, and what appeared to us superfluous, amount of bolsters,
pillows, feather beds, winter counterpanes; but she would hear no nay,
declaring, "It often turned very chilly in the Pusterthal, and at such
times a warm bed was a godsend."

We now began to dream of beds of roses, but we were mistaken: we were
crying before we were out of the wood. We arrived at the Hof the
following afternoon with our bag and baggage, and found Moidel,
otherwise Maria, busily preparing the newly-erected bed in the
state-room. She received us cordially, until my mother, laying her shawl
on the bedstead belonging to the house, remarked that she wished that
for herself.

Maria seemed suddenly thunderstruck. She turned a deep red, and with a
gesture of astonishment let drop a pillow, exclaiming, "Heavens alive!
that is the Herr Student's bed!"

She fled from the chamber, bringing back her aunt to the rescue. The
latter looked stern and aggrieved. "Never, never! no one must lay his
head on that pillow but the student," she cried. Had my mother asked to
repose on the altar of the chapel they could not have been more
dumbfoundered.

As Frau Sieger's beds were truly spare, and as she could merely provide
three, this second complication ended in the family giving up a bed of
their own--one which was adorned at the head and foot with a cross, a
bleeding heart and sacred monogram--one, in fact, which bore more marks
of sanctity about it than the sacred bed of the student. It was obvious
that this mysterious individual was consecrated to the Church, and that
e