helped the flags and banners to unfurl: Our fine churches were decked
all over and about with garlands, boughs, and banners, and meseemed were
like happy brides awaiting their marriage in holiday array. The market-
place was a scene of high festival, the beautiful fountain was a mighty
bower of flowers, the triumphal arches, methought, were such as the gods
of wood and garden might have joined to raise. Every balcony was richly
hung, and even the crested gables and the turrets on the roofs displayed
some bravery. All, so far as eye could see, was motley-hued and spick
and span for brightness. The tiniest pane in the topmost dormer-window
glittered without a spot. The poorest were clad in costly finery; the
patrician folk were in the dress of knights and nobles; every craftsman
was arrayed as though he were a councillor, every squire like his lord.
You would have weened that day that there were none but rich folk in
Nuremberg. The maidens' pearl chaplets gleamed in the sun, and the
golden jewels in their fur bonnets; and what did their mothers care for
the heat as they went to and fro to display the costly fur turbans which
crowned their heads as it were with a glory of fur? How carefully had
they dressed the little ones! They were to see the Emperor and Empress
with their own eyes, and their Majesties might even, by good hap, see
them!

Presently we saw the procession of the guilds with their devices and
banners; never had they come forth in such goodly bravery. They were to
form in ranks, on each side of the streets and the highway, a long space
outside the gate.

At last it was nigh the hour when their Majesties should arrive. We
maids had all assembled. Albeit we had agreed all to be clad in white,
Ursula had decked her head-gear with Ostrich feathers of rose-pink and
sky-blue; right costly plumes they were, but over many. Now would she