carved in the ends of the beams.

The second story, which projected above the ground floor into the
street, was completely dark; but a faint glimmer of light streamed from
the little window over the spurge laurel tree, and--this was the main
thing--the bow window in the third story was still lighted.

She whom he sought was waiting there with her father, while beneath it
was the former abode of the precentor and organist and his wife, who had
reared Wolf, and whose heir, after the old man's death, he had become.

He would take up his quarters in the room which he had occupied as a
scholar, where he had studied, practised music, trained himself in the
art of composition, and in leisure hours had even drawn and painted a
little.

Old Ursula, as he had learned from the legal document which informed him
of his inheritance, was taking care of the property bequeathed to him.
With what pleasure the old maid-servant, faithful soul, who had come
with him--then a little four-year-old boy--and his mother to Ratisbon
twenty-two years ago, would make a bed for him and again cook the
pancakes, which she knew to be his favourite dish!

The thought of the greeting awaiting him from her dispelled the timidity
with which he had set his foot on the first of the three steps that led
up to the threshold of the house. He had no occasion to use the knocker;
a narrow, long streak of light showed that, notwithstanding the late
hour, the outer door was ajar.

Now he heard an inner door open, and this again aroused the anxiety he
had just conquered. Suppose that he should find Wawerl below? Ardently
as he yearned for her to whom all the love of his heart belonged, this
meeting would have come too quickly. Yet she might very easily happen to
be in the lower story, for the lighted window beside the door belonged
to the little house chapel, and since her confirmation she had
undertaken to sweep it, clean the candlesticks and lamps, and keep them
in order, fill the vases on the little altar with blossoms, and adorn
the image of the Madonna with flowers on Lady day and other festivals.

How often he had helped the child and heard her father call her "his
little sacrist"!

The chapel here had gained greater importance to him when the Blombergs
placed above the altar the Madonna and Child which he, who tried all the
arts, had copied with his own hand from an ancient painting. This
had been in July; but when, on the Virgin's Assumption day in Aug