offered her her lips. She and her mother made the singer's acquaintance
at the musical exercises established here by the Council. Music is
the only bond between them."--"Yet there is a bond," cried De Soto
suspiciously. "If you see her again before your departure, advise her,
in my name, to sever it. She found a friendly welcome and much kindness
in that house, and here at least--tell her so--only one faith exists. A
prosperous journey, Sir Knight."

The delay caused by this conversation induced Wolf to quicken his pace.
It had grown late, and Erasmus Eckhart had surely been waiting some time
for his school friend in the old precentor's house.

This was really the case, but the Wittenberg theologian, whose course of
study had ended only a fortnight before, and who, with his long, brown
locks and bright blue eyes, still looked like a gay young student, had
had no reason to lament the delay.

He was first received by Ursel, who had left her bed and was moving
slowly about the room, and how much the old woman had had to tell her
young fellow-believer from Wittenberg about Martin Luther, who was now
no longer living, and Professor Melanchthon; but Erasmus Eckhart liked to
talk with her, for as a schoolmate and intimate friend of Wolf he had
paid innumerable visits to the house, and received in winter an apple,
in summer a handful of cherries, from her.

The young man was still less disposed to be vexed with Wolf for his delay
when Barbara appeared in Ursel's room. Erasmus had played with her, too,
when he was a boy, and they shared a treasure of memories of the fairest
portion of life.