r Christian people!" Whereupon
she clapped her hands and laughed aloud, albeit not from her heart, and
then raved on: "At least is it a new thing, and the first time that the
like hath ever been heard of in Nuremberg!"

If the whole of the holy Roman Empire had risen up to make resistance
and to mock us, it would have failed to move Ann or me, and I answered,
loud and steadfast: "Everything right and good that ever was done in
Nuremberg, my heart's beloved Cousin, was done there once for the first
time; and it is right and good that we should go, and we mean to do it!"
Whereupon Cousin Maud drew back in disgust and amazement, and gazed from
one to the other of us with enquiring eyes, and as wondering a face as
though she were striving to rede some dark riddle. Then her vast bosom
began to heave up and down, and we, who knew her, could not fail to
perceive that somewhat great and strange was moving her. And whereas she
presently shook her heavy head to and fro, and set her fists hard on
her hips, I looked for a sudden and dreadful storm, and my Uncle Conrad
likewise gazed her in the face with expectant fear; yet it was long in
breaking forth. What then was my feeling when, at last, she took her
hands from her sides and struck her right hand in her left palm so that
it rang again, and burst forth eagerly, albeit with roguish good humor
and tearful eyes: "If indeed everything good and right that ever was
done in Nuremberg must have once been done there for the first time, our
good town shall now see that a grey-headed old woman with gout in
her toes can sail over seas, from the Pegnitz even to the land of the
barbarian Heathen and Cairo! Your hand on it, Young Kubbeling, and
yours, Maidens. We will be fellow-travellers. Signed and sealed. Strew
sand on it!"

Hereupon Ann, who was wont to be still, shrieked loudly and cast herself
first on my cousin's neck and then on mine and then on my uncle's;
he indeed stood as though deeply offended, as likewise did my good
godfather Christian. Yet they would not speak, that they might not mar
our joy, albeit Uncle Pfinzing growled forth that our plan was sheer
youthful folly, wilfulness, and the like. "At any rate it is an unlaid
egg, so long as my wife has not added mustard to the peppered broth,"
Uncle Conrad declared, and he departed to carry tidings to my aunt of
what mad folly these women's heads had brewed.

Even Kubbeling shook his head, albeit he spoke not, inasmuch as he kn