contemptibly small.

Barbara endured this cheerfully, for, though she had many relatives and
acquaintances among the companions of her own age, she possessed no
intimate friend.

As a child, Wolf had been her favourite playmate, but now visits from
her aunts and cousins would only have interrupted her secret work,
and disturbed her practice of singing.

When Wolf entered the house, the captain had just left the chapel. He
did not notice the returning owner, for people must have made their way
into the quiet dwelling. At least he had heard talking in the entry of
the second story, where usually it was even more noiseless than in his
lodgings in the third, since it was tenanted only by old Ursel, who was
now confined to her bed.

Wolf saw Barbara's father, whose height surpassed the stature of ordinary
men by a head, hurrying up the stairs. It was a strange, and, for
children, certainly an alarming, sight--his left leg, which had been
broken by a bullet from a howitzer, had remained stiff, and, as he leaped
up three stairs at a time, he stretched his lean body so far forward that
it seemed as though he could not help losing his balance at the next
step. He was in haste, for he thought that at last he could again acquit
himself manfully and cope with one or rather with two or three of the
burglars who, since the Duke of Bavaria had prohibited the conveyance of
provisions into Ratisbon as a punishment for its desertion of the
Catholic Church, had pursued their evil way in the city.

He first discovered with what very small ill-doers he had to deal when he