had laid a plot against her father; and it was
for that alone that Uncle Christian, who could ill endure the ride in
the winter-season, had set forth, with Master Pernhart, for Augsburg.
And there he had achieved a rare masterpiece of skill, painting Dame
Ursula's reprobate malice in such strong colors to her father that
Master Pernhart was in fear lest he should bring upon himself another
fit. And he had furthermore sworn to lay the whole matter before the
Emperor, with whom, as all men knew, he enjoyed much privilege, inasmuch
as he had been as it were his host when his Majesty held his court
at Nuremberg. Ursula, to be sure, was no subject now of his gracious
Majesty's; yet would he, Christian Pfinzing, know no rest till the
Emperor had compelled her father, Jost Tetzel, to cut off from her who
had married an Italian, the possessions she counted on from a German
city.

Thereupon Pernhart had spoken in calm but weighty words, threatening
that his brother, the Cardinal, would visit the heaviest wrath of the
Pope on the old man and his daughter, unless he were ready and willing
to make amends and atonement for his child's accursed sin, whereby a
Christian man had fallen into the hands of the godless heathen. And when
at last they had conquered the churlish old man's hardness of heart and
stiff-necked malice, they drove him to a strange bargain. Old Tetzel
was steadfast in his intention to give up as little as he might of his
daughter's inheritance, while his tormentors raised their demands, and
claimed a hundred gulden and a hundred gulden more, up to many hundreds,
which Tetzel was forced to yield; till at last he gave his bond, signed
and sealed, to renounce all his daughter's estate, and to add thereto
two thousand gulden of his own moneys, and to hold the sum in readiness
to ransom Herdegen.

Thus, at one stroke, all our fears touching the moneys were at an end;
and when the notary showed us the parchment roll on which each one
had set down the sum he would give, we were struck dumb; and when we
reckoned it all together, the sum was far greater than that which had
cost us so many sleepless nights.

By this time we scarce could read for tears, and our souls were so moved
to thankfulness as we marked the large sums set forth against the names
of the noble families and of the convent treasurers, that we had never
felt so great a love for our good city and the dear, staunch friends who
dwelt therein. Nay, and many s