disposal, and her services would be repaid by personal advantages to
himself which he was not disposed to forego; in effect these were the
only means that the baron had of requiting any attendance upon his
daughter.

The citizens of old Germany had the strongest and most stringent
ideas of parental authority, and regarded daughters as absolute
chattels of their father; and Master Gottfried Sorel, though he alone
had done the part of a parent to his niece, felt entirely unable to
withstand the nearer claim, except by representations; and these fell
utterly disregarded, as in truth every counsel had hitherto done,
upon the ears of Reiter Hugh, ever since he had emerged from his
swaddling clothes. The plentiful supper, full cup of wine, the
confections, the soft chair, together perhaps with his brother's
grave speech, soon, however, had the effect of sending him into a
doze, whence he started to accept civilly the proposal of being
installed in the stranger's room, where he was speedily snoring
between two feather beds.

Then there could be freedom of speech in the gallery, where the uncle
and aunt held anxious counsel over the poor little dark-tressed head
that still lay upon good Johanna's knees. The dame was indignant and
resolute: "Take the child back with him into a very nest of
robbers!--her own innocent dove whom they had shielded from all evil
like a very nun in a cloister! She should as soon think of yielding
her up to be borne off by the great Satan himself with his horns and
hoofs."

"Hugh is her father, housewife," said the master-carver.