to gather sweet pears from juniper bushes. Ever since your betrothal
your mother and I have had no sleep, disturbed whenever we talked to each
other about your being condemned to live under the same roof with that
old devil, the countess, her pitiable daughter, and that worthless
Siebenburg. But within the past few hours all this has been changed.
The table-cloth has been cut between the Eysvogels and the Ortliebs. No
power in the world can ever join it. I have not told you what has
happened. Now you may learn that you---- But first listen, and then
decide on whose side you will stand.

"Early this morning I went to the session of the Council. In the market-
place I met first one member of it, then a second, third, and fourth;
each asked me what had happened to the beautiful E, my lovely little
daughter. Gradually I learned what had reached their ears. Yesterday
evening, on his way home from here, the man outside, Casper Eysvogel,
sullied your--our--good name, child, in a way I have just learned the
particulars. He boasted, in the presence of those estimable old
gentlemen, the Brothers Ebner, that he had flung at my feet the ring
which bound you to his son. You had been surprised at midnight, he said,
in the arms of a Swiss knight, and that base scoundrel Siebenburg, his
daughter's husband, dared at the gaming-table, before a number of knights
and gentlemen--among them young Hans Gross, Veit Holzschuher, and others-
to put your interview with the Swiss in so false a light that No, I
cannot bring my lips to utter it----

"You need hear only this one thing more: the wretch said that he thanked
his patron saint that they had discovered the jade's tricks in time. And
this, child, was the real belief of the whole contemptible crew! But now
that the water is up to their necks, and they need my helping hand to
save them from drowning-now they will graciously take Ernst Ortlieb's