law. Their effect was to make the good dame more passionate in her
embraces and admonitions to Christina to take care of herself. She
would have a mass said every day that Heaven might have a care of
her!

Master Gottfried was going to ride as far as the confines of the free
city's territory, and his round, sleek, cream-coloured palfrey, used
to ambling in civic processions, was as great a contrast to raw-
boned, wild-eyed Nibelung, all dappled with misty grey, as was the
stately, substantial burgher to his lean, hungry-looking brother, or
Dame Johanna's dignified, curled, white poodle, which was forcibly
withheld from following Christina, to the coarse-bristled, wolfish-
looking hound who glared at the household pet with angry and
contemptuous eyes, and made poor Christina's heart throb with terror
whenever it bounded near her.

Close to her uncle she kept, as beneath the trellised porches that
came down from the projecting gables of the burghers' houses many a
well-known face gazed and nodded, as they took their way through the
crooked streets, many a beggar or poor widow waved her a blessing.
Out into the market-place, with its clear fountain adorned with
arches and statues, past the rising Dome Kirk, where the swarms of
workmen unbonneted to the master-carver, and the reiter paused with
an irreverent sneer at the small progress made since he could first
remember the building. How poor little Christina's soul clung to
every cusp of the lacework spire, every arch of the window, each of
which she had hailed as an achievement! The tears had well-nigh
blinded her in a gush of feeling that came on her unawares, and her
mule had his own way as he carried her under the arch of the tall and
beautifully-sculptured bridge tower, and over the noble bridge across