How well my aunt and the Cardinal were minded towards each other would be
hard to describe, albeit now and again they fell to friendly strife; the
reverend prelate found it hard to depart from the lodge and from that
strange woman, whose clear and busy brain in her sickly body came, in
after times, to be accounted as one of the great marvels of her native
town. Howbeit, it was his duty to pass Christmas-eve with his venerable
mother. He plighted Gotz and me as he had promised us, and to his life's
end he was ever a kind and honored friend and patron to us and to our
children.

Ann was ever his favorite, and ere he quitted Nuremberg, he bestowed on
her a dowry such as few indeed of our richest nobles could give with
their daughters.

Christmas-eve, which we spent at the lodge with our parents and the
Chaplain and my dear godfather, uncle Christian Pfinzing, was a right
glorious festival, bringing gladness to our souls; yet was it to end with
the first peril that befell our love's young joy. After the others had
gone to their chambers, and Gotz had indeed given me a last parting kiss,
he stayed me a moment and besought me to be ready early in the morning to
ride with him to the hut of Martin the bee keeper, whose wife had been
his nurse. On many a Christmas morning had he greeted the good woman
with some little posy, and now he had not found one hour to spare her
since his home-coming. Now I would fain have granted this simple request
but that I had privily, with the Chaplain's help, made the school
children to learn a Christmas carol wherewith to wake the parents and
Gotz from their slumbers. Thus, when he bid me hold myself in readiness
at an early hour, I besought him to make it later. This, however, by no
means pleased him; he answered that the good dame was wont of old to look
for him full early on Christmas morning, and he had already too long