to Cousin Maud bitterly indeed of the sorrows brought upon her by her
only son--for he was fully bent on taking the working wench to wife in
holy wedlock--in my heart I took my aunt's part. And I deemed it a
shameful and grievous thing that so fine a young gentleman could abase
himself to bring heaviness on the best of parents for the sake of a
lowborn maid.

After this, one Sunday, it fell by chance that I went to mass with Ann to
the church of St. Laurence, instead of St. Sebald's to which we belonged.
Having said my prayer, looking about me I beheld Gotz, and saw how, as he
leaned against a pillar, he held his gaze fixed on one certain spot. My
eyes followed his, and at once I saw whither they were drawn, for I saw a
young maid of the citizen class in goodly, nay--in rich array, and she
was herself of such rare and wonderful beauty that I myself could not
take my eyes off her. And I remembered that I had met the wench erewhile
on the feast-day of St. John, and that uncle Christian Pfinzing, my
worshipful godfather, had pointed her out to Cousin Maud, and had said
that she was the fairest maid in Nuremberg whom they called, and rightly,
Fair Gertrude.

Now the longer I gazed at her the fairer I deemed her, and when Ann
discovered to me, what I had at once divined, that this sweet maid was
the daughter of Pernhart the coppersmith, my child's heart was glad, for
if my cousin was without dispute the finest figure of a man in the whole
assembly Fair Gertrude was the sweetest maid, I thought, in the whole
wide world.

If it had been possible that she could be of yet greater beauty it would
but have added to my joy. And henceforth I would go as often as I might
to St. Laurence's, and past the coppersmith's house to behold Fair