no word of the matter, like most Italian women--and may be many a
Nuremberger--she could not refrain herself from telling that of which her
heart and brain were full, deeming it great good fortune for her child
and her whole family; and she had shared the secret with all her nearest
friends. Eight days before Shrove Tuesday Cousin Maud and we three
Schoppers had been bidden to spend the evening in the house by the river,
and Dame Giovanna, kind-hearted as ever, but not far-seeing, had likewise
bidden her father-in-law, the lute-player, and Adam Heyden from the
tower, and Ann's one and only aunt, the widow of Rudel Hennelein.

This Hennelein had been the town bee-master, the chief of the bee-
keepers, who, then as now, had their business out in the Lorenzer-Wald.
His duties had been to hold an assize for the bee-keepers three times in
the year at a village called Feucht, and to lend an ear to their
complaints; and albeit he had fulfilled his office without blame, he had
dwelt in strife with his wife, and being given to rioting, he was wont
rather to go to the tavern than sit at table with his cross-grained wife.

When he presently died there was but small leaving, and the widow in the
little house in the milk market had need to look twice at every farthing,
although she had not chick nor child. And whereas full half of the
offerings sent by the bee-keepers to help out their master's widow were
in honey, she strove to turn this to the best account, and to this end
she would by no means sell it to the dealers who would offer to take it,
but carried it herself in neat little crocks, one at a time, to the
houses of the rich folks, whereby her gains were much the greater.

Whereas her husband had been a member of the worshipful class of
magistrates, she deemed that such trading ill-beseemed her dignity; and
she at all times wore a great fur hat as large round as a cart-wheel of