the thought that I must tarry here idle, and others go round as it were
with the beggars' staff, in our name, and for the sake of a son of our
house who had done no good to any man. Howbeit, I knew full well that
pride and defiance were now out of place; and while I was walking
homewards with Ann and Cousin Maud, on a sudden my cousin asked me: If
Lorenz Stromer were in Herdegen's plight would I not gladly give of my
estate; and when I said yes, quoth she: "Then all is well." And inasmuch
as she was of the same mind she could, without a qualm, suffer the
gentlemen to ask from door to door in Herdegen's name and in her own.
It was our part only to show that we, as his nearest and dearest, were
foremost in giving. And on that same day Ann brought all she possessed
in gold and jewels, even to her christening coins which she had kept in
her money-box, and among them likewise a costly cross of diamonds which
my lord Cardinal had given her a few months ago.

That evening, again, as dusk was falling, Ann once more knocked at our
door, and the reason of her coming was in truth a sad one: her grand-
uncle, old Adam Heyden the organist, our friend of the tower, felt that
his last hour was nigh, and bid us go to see him. Thus it came to pass
that in two following days we had to stand by a death-bed. On each lay
an old man departing to the other world, and meseemed their end had
fallen so close together to yield warning and meditation to our young
souls. Now, as I toiled up the steep turret-stair, after flying,
yesterday, up the matted steps of the wealthy house of the Im Hoffs,
meseemed that the two men's lives had been like to these staircases, and,
young as I was, I nevertheless could say to myself that the humbler man's
steep stair, which of late he could not mount without much panting, led
up to a higher and brighter home than the wide steps of the rich
merchant's palace.