adorns the apple tree that is to bear a hundred fruits, with ten thousand
blossoms to please our eyes ere it satisfies our appetite?"

"To you, if to any one, it gives daily proof of liberality in both
learning and the affairs of life," Herr Wilibald assented.

"If you will substitute 'God, our Lord,' for 'destiny,' I agree with
you," observed the Abbot of St. AEgidius in Nuremberg.

The portly old prelate nodded cordially to Dr. Peutinger as he spoke. The
warm, human love with which he devoted himself to the care of souls in
his great parish consumed the lion's share of his time and strength. He
spent only his leisure hours in the study of the ancient writers, in whom
he found pleasure, and rejoiced in the work of the humanists without
sharing their opinions.

"Yes, my dear Doctor," he continued in his deep voice, in a tone of the
most earnest conviction, "if envy were ever pardonable, he who presumed
to feel it toward you might most speedily hope to find forgiveness. There
is no physical or mental gift with which the Lord has not blessed you,
and to fill the measure to overflowing, he permitted you to win a
beautiful and virtuous wife of noble lineage."

"And allowed glorious daughters to grow up in your famous home," cried
little Dr. Eberbach, waving his wineglass enthusiastically. "Who has not
heard of Juliane Peutinger, the youngest of humanists, but no longer one
of the least eminent, who, when a child only four years old, addressed
the Emperor Maximilian in excellent Latin. But when, as in the child
Juliane, the wings of the intellect move so powerfully and so
prematurely, who would not think of the words of the superb Ovid: 'The