Master Ulman Pernhart was married in a right sober fashion to fair
Mistress Giovanna, and I remember to this day seeing them wed in Saint
Laurence's Church. It was a few months before this that I was taken for
the first time to a dance at the town hall. There, as soon as I had
forgotten my first little fears, I took my pleasure right gladly to the
sound of the music, and I verily delighted in the dance. But albeit I
found no lack of young ladies my friends, and still less of youths who
would fain win my favor, I nevertheless lost not the feeling that I had
left part of my very being at home; nay, that I scarce had a right to
these joys, since my brothers were in a distant land and Ann could not
share them with me, and while I was taking my pleasure she had the heart-
ache.

Then was there a second dance, and a third and fourth; and at home there
came a whole troop of young men in their best apparel to ask of Cousin
Maud, each after his own fashion, to be allowed to pay court to me; but
albeit they were all of good family, and to many a one I felt no dislike,
I felt nothing at all like love as I imagined it, and I would have
nothing to say to any one of them. And all this I took with a light
heart, for which Cousin Maud many a time,--and most rightly--reproved me.

But at that time, and yet more as the months went on, I hardly knew
my own mind; another fate than my own weighed most on my soul; and I
thought so little of my own value that meseemed it could add to no man's
happiness to call me his. All else in life passed before my eyes like a
shadow; a time came when all joy was gone from me, and my suitors sought
me in vain in the dancing-hall, for a great and heavy grief befell me.

All was at an end--even now I scarce can bear to write the words--between