formed by the unusually thick walls. During the day its small, round
panes gave the old gentleman light while he guided his graving tool. A
wooden tripod supported the board on which his tools lay. The stool,
which usually stood on a wooden trestle opposite to it, now occupied a
place before the table bearing the flagon of wine, and was intended for
Barbara.

After the torches had ceased to burn, a single tallow candle in a
wrought-iron candlestick afforded the two men light, and threatened to go
out when, in the eagerness of their conversation, they forgot to use the
snuffers.

Neither curtain, carpet, nor noteworthy work of art pleased the eye in
this bare, strangely narrow room. The weapons and pieces of armour of
the aged champion of the faith, which hung high above the window, made no
pretension to beauty. Besides, the rays of the dim candle did not extend
to them any more than to the valueless pictures of saints and virgins on
the wall.

The door of Barbara's little bow-window room stood open. Nothing but a
small oil lamp was burning there. But the articles it contained, though
dainty in themselves, were standing and lying about in such confusion
that it also presented an unpleasant aspect.

Yet Barbara's beauty had shed such radiance upon this hideous environment
that the scene of her industry had seemed to Wolf like an Eden.

Now he could scarcely understand this; but he found it so much the easier
to comprehend that these wretched surroundings no longer suited such a
pearl, and that it behooved him to procure it a worthier setting.