e to bear it, or I shall come to a bad end--I shall follow her
who died here in this very chamber."

My soul had ever stood open to her and so I told her right heartily, and
her face became once more as it had been of old; and albeit those things
she had to tell me were not indeed comforting, still I could in all
honesty bid her to be of good heart; and I presently felt that to
unburden herself of all that had weighed upon her these last few weeks,
did her as much good as a bath. For it still was a pain to her to see
her mother cooing like a pigeon round her new mate. She herself was full
of his praises, albeit this man, well brought up and trained to good
manners, would ever abide by the old customs of the old craftsmen, and
his venerable mother likewise held fast by them, so that his wife
had striven in vain to change the ways of the house. Thus master and
mistress, son and daughter, foreman and apprentice, sewing man and
maid all ate, as they had ever done, at the same table. And whereas
the daughters, by old custom, sat in order on the mother's side, the
youngest next to her and the oldest at the end, it thus fell that Ann
was placed next to the foreman, who was that very one who had betrayed
Gotz Waldstromer to his master because he had himself cast an eye on
Gertrude. The young fellow had ere long set his light heart on Ann; and
being a fine lad, and the sole son of a well-to-do master in Augsburg,
he was likewise a famous wooer and breaker of maiden hearts, and could
boast of many a triumphant love affair among the daughters of the
simpler class. He was, in his own rank of life, cock of the walk, as
such folks say; and I remembered well having seen him at an apprentices'
dance at the May merrymakings, whither he had come apparelled in a
rose-colored jerkin and light-hued hose, bedecked with flowers and
greenery in his cap and belt; he had fooled with the daughters of the
master of his guild like the coxcomb he was, and whirled them off to
dance as though he did them high honor by paying court to them. It
might, to be sure, have given him a lesson to find that his master's
fair daughter scorned his suit; yet that sank not deep, inasmuch as it
was for the sake of a Junker of high degree. With Ann he might hope for
better luck; for although from the first she gave him to wit that he
pleased her not, he did not therefore leave her in peace, and this very
morning, finding her alone in the hall, he had made so bold as t