go halves!" And he turned to go to the gate.

Ann took him by the hand, and without a word of his ways with Ursula,
not in chiding but as in deep grief, she said: "If you depart, you do me
a hurt. I have no pleasure but when you are by, and what do I care for
Heinrich?"

This was all he needed; his eye again met hers with bright looks, and
from that hour of our childhood she knew no will but his.

From that hour likewise Ann held off from all other lads, and when he was
by it seemed as though she had no eyes nor ears save for him and me
alone. To Kunz she paid little heed; yet he never failed to wait on her
and watch to do her service, as though she were the daughter of some
great lord, and he no more than her page.

Ann freely owned to me that she held Herdegen to be the noblest youth
on earth, nor could I marvel, when I was myself of the same mind. What
should I know, when I was still but fourteen and fifteen years old, of
love and its dangers? I had felt such love for Gotz as Ann for my elder
brother, and as I had then been glad that my dear Cousin had won the love
of so fair a maid as Gertrude, I likewise believed that Ann would some
day be glad if Herdegen should plight his troth to a fair damsel of high
degree. Hence I did all that in me lay to bring them together whenever
it might be, and in truth this befell often enough without my aid; for
not music alone was a bond between them, nor yet that Herdegen and I
taught her to ride on a horse, on the sandy way behind our horse-stalls
--the Greek lessons for which Magister Peter had come into the household
were a plea on which they passed many an hour together.