Poor Kunz! Doubtless he loved her; and yet he neither by word nor deed
gave her cause to guess his heart's desire. When, at about this time,
old Hans Tucher died, one of the worthiest and wisest heads of the town
and the council, Kunz gave Ann for her name-day a prayer-book with the
old man's motto, which he had written in it for Kunz's confirmation,
which was as follows:

"God ruleth all things for the best
And sends a happy end at last."

And Ann took the gift right gladly; and more than once when, after some
disappointment, my spirit sank, she would point to the promise "And
sends a happy end at last."

Whereupon I would look up at her, abashed and put to shame; for it is
one thing not to despair, and another to trust with steadfast confidence
on a happy outcome. She, in truth, could do this; and when I beheld her
day by day at her laborious tasks, bravely and cheerfully fulfilling the
hard and bitter exercises which her father-confessor enjoined, to the
end that she might win the favor of the Saints for her lover, I weened
that the Apostle spake the truth when he said that love hopeth all
things and believeth all things.

Notwithstanding it was not easy to her, nor to us, to hold fast our
confidence; now and again some trace of the lost man would come to light
which, so soon as Kunz followed it up, vanished in mist like a jack-o'
lantern. And often as he failed he would not be overweary; and once,
when he was staying at Nuremberg and tidings came from Venice that a
certain German who might be Herdegen was dwelling a slave at Joppa,
he made ready to set forth for that place to ransom him forthwith. My
grand-uncle, who in the face of death was eagerly striving to win
the grace of Heaven by good works, suffered him to depart, and at my
entreaty he took my squire Akusch with him, inasmuch as he could still
speak Arabic, which was his mother-tongue. Likewise I besought Kunz to
make it his care to restore the lad to his people, if it should befall
that he might find them, albeit hitherto we had made enquiry for them
in vain. This he promised me to do; yet, often as that good youth had
longed to see his native land once more, and much as he had talked in
praise of its hot sun, in our cold winter seasons, it went hard with the
good lad to depart from us; and when he took leave of me he could not
cease from assuring me that in his own land he would do all that in him
lay to find the brother of his