lp of our friends. Then she was fain to think
of the future. And the longer she did so, even when Ann had come to us
and had been told all our tidings, the better cheer she showed; nay,
it might have been conceived that it would be a far more easy and
delightful matter to live in narrow poverty than in superfluous
riches, and thereupon she put me in mind how that many a time, when the
men-folks were away from home, she and I had been content to make
good cheer with some sweet porridge, and had very gladly dined without
flesh-meat, which was so costly. We should be free from the vexation of
so many serving-men and wenches; and whereas of late she had been forced
to turn Brigitta out of the house, had she not herself scarce escaped
a fever from sheer worry of mind. Susan would ever be true to us; she
would be ready to share our poverty with us, and the unresting up-stairs
and down had long been a torment to her old feet.

The Magister was a well-disposed man, and if he found it an over-hard
matter to depart from us we might very gladly let him board with us,
if he could be content to live with us in her little house in the
Grassmarket, in which Rosmuller now dwelt. There was no lack of good
home-spun cloth in Nuremberg; nay, and if we should never again have new
garments that would be all the better for our souls' health. As for me,
I might perchance have fewer suitors, but if one should pay his court
to me, he would have no thought but for Margery, and how she looked and
moved. Nay, take it for all in all, we owed much thanks to Ursula and
the reprobate heathen Sultan if we were by their means brought low from
ill-starred wealth and ease to God-pleasing poverty.

Ann was far less horror-struck at the fearful sum of the ransom than we
had been, by reason that she was ever possessed by the assurance that
Heaven had created her and Herdegen for each other, and would bring them
together at last.

Moreover she had good cause to build her hopes on my grand-uncle's help.
In a letter from the Cardinal to her he said that now, as of old, he
could only counsel her to follow the voice of her heart; that he would
put no hindrance in the way of our departing, albeit he urgently prayed
us to put it off till after his homecoming, which should now be in a
short space. She was to let Baron Im Hoff know that he was ready to do
his will, albeit he hoped at his coming to find him in mended health.
She had forthwith carried these good tidi