and ourselves. My only son, the last Schorlin, I neither can nor will
permit to renounce the world, in which he has tasks to perform which God
Himself assigned him by his birth."

"And how could Heinz part from this angel," cried Maria--to whom, next to
her mother, her brother was the dearest person on earth--"if he is really
sure of her love!"

She herself had not yet opened her heart to love. To wander through
forest and field with the aged head of her family, assist her mother in
housekeeping, and nurse the sick poor in the village, had hitherto been
the joy and duty of her life. Gaily, often with a song upon her lips,
she had carelessly seen one day follow another until Schorlin Castle was
besieged and destroyed, and her dear uncle, the Knight Ramsweg, was slain
in the defence of the fortress confided to his care. Then she and her
mother were taken to the convent at Constance. Both remained there in
perfect freedom, as welcome guests of the nuns, until the mounted courier
brought a letter from the Knight Maier of Silenen, her cousin, who wrote
from Nuremberg that Heinz, like his sisters, intended to renounce the
world.

Lady Schorlin set out at once, and with an anxious heart rode to
Nuremberg with her daughter as fast as possible.

They had arrived a few hours before and gone to their cousin from
Silenen. From him the Lady Wendula learned what her maternal love
desired to know. Biberli's fate brought her, after a brief rest, to the
hospital, and how it comforted the faithful fellow's heart to see the
noble lady who had confided his master to his care, and in whose house
the T and St had been embroidered on his long coat and cap!