scarce believe our eyes when she came in with that same roguish smile
which she was wont to wear when, in playing hide-and-seek, she had stolen
home past the seeker, and she cried: "Thank the Virgin that the air is
clear once more! You may laugh, but in truth I fled up to the very
garret for sheer dread of Mistress Tetzel. Did she come to fetch her
bridegroom?"

Herdegen could not refrain from smiling at this question, and we likewise
did the same; even Cousin Maud, who till this moment had sat on the couch
like one crushed, with her feet stretched out before her, made a face and
cried: "To fetch him! Ursula who has caught the Bohemian! She is a
monster! Were ever such doings seen in our good town?--And her mother
was so wise, so worthy a woman! And the hussy is but nineteen!--Merciful
Father, what will she be at forty or fifty, when most women only begin to
be wicked!" And thus she went on for some while.

Ere long we forgot Ursula and all the hateful to-do, and passed the
precious hours in much content, till after midnight, when the Pernharts
sent to fetch Ann home. Herdegen and I would walk with her. After a
grievous yet hopeful leave-taking I came home again, leaning on his arm,
through the cool autumn night.

When I now admonished Herdegen as we walked, as to the fair Marchesa and
her letter, he declared to me that in those evil weeks he had spent in
bitter yearning as a serving man in the bee-keeper's hut, he had learned
to know his own mind. Neither the Marchesa, whom he scorned from the
bottom of his heart, inasmuch as, with all her beauty, she was full of
craft and lies, no, nor event Dame Venus herself could now turn him aside
from the love and duty he had sworn to Ann. He would, indeed, take ship
from Genoa rather than from Venice, were it not for shame of such fears