bert and the leader of the boy choir to lend them a helping
hand, so we shall probably meet at the rehearsal.--Go to the stable,
Janche, and see that the groom has rubbed the bay down thoroughly. As
for the rolls and packages here----"

"I'll help you carry them," said the violinist, seizing his shoes; but
Wolf eagerly declined his assistance, and went out to ask the landlord
to let him have one of his men.

But the servants of the overcrowded Red Cock all had their hands full,
so the nine-year-old son of the Leitgeb couple and the cellar man's two
somewhat younger boys, who had not yet gone to bed, were made bearers of
the parcels.

How eager they were to do something which suited grown people, and, when
Wolf described the place where they were to carry the articles, Fran
Leitgeb sympathizingly helped him, and charged the children to hold the
valuable packages very carefully. They must not spare the knocker in the
second story of the cantor house, for old Ursula's hearing was no longer
the best, and since the day before yesterday--Kathl had brought the news
home--she had been ill. "Some rare luck," the landlady continued, "will
surely follow the knight up to the Blombergs. The same old steep path,
leads there; but as to Wawer!--it would be improper to say Jungfrau
Barbara--you will surer open your eyes--" Here she was summoned to the
kitchen, and Wolf followed his little assistants into the street.

CHAPTER III.

The cantor house was only a few steps from the Red Cock, and Wolf knew
every stone in the street, which was named for the tavern. Yet that very
circumstance delayed him, for even the smallest trifle which had changed
during his absence attracted his attention.

He had already noticed at the familiar inn that the gay image of the
Madonna and Cluld, and the little lamp above, were no longer there. The
pictures of the saints had been removed from the public rooms, and even
the painting which had been impressed upon his memory from boyhood--like
a sign of the house--had vanished. A large red cock, crowing with
wide-open beak at the Apostle Peter, had been there.

This venerable work of an old artist ought to have been retained, no
matter what doctrine the Leitgebs now professed. Its disappearance
affected the knight unpleasantly.

It also induced him to see whether the Madonna with the swords in her
heart, which, at the time of his departure, had adorned the Ark, the
great house at the corner of the