wise have seen these, inasmuch as that they hung down,
whereas they were wont to be drawn to the sides. Behind them, all was
dark; thus the Master and his wife, with their strange guest, must have
withdrawn into the chamber at the back of the house, where the Cardinal
had loved to work, and wherein there were sundry works of art to be
seen, and choice Greek manuscripts which he had brought with him to show
to the learned doctors in his native town; as being rare and precious.

None was here save the old grandam, and her countenance beamed with joy
as she held out her hands to me from her arm-chair, in glad and hearty
greeting. She was dressed in her bravest array, and there was in her
aspect likewise somewhat solemn and festal.

Albeit I was truly minded at all times to rejoice with those who were
rejoicing, all this bravery, at this time, was sorely against the grain
of my troubled heart and its forebodings of ill. I could not feel at
ease, and meseemed that all this magnificence and good cheer mocked my
hapless and oppressed spirit.

In truth, I could scarce bring myself to return the old dame's greeting
with due gladness; and her keen eyes at once discerned how matters were
with me. She held me by the hand, and asked me in a hearty voice whence
came the clouds that darkened my brow. When her bright, high-spirited
Margery, whom she had never known to be in a gloomy mood, looked like
this, for sure some great evil had befallen.

Whereupon what came over me I know not. Whether it were that the
blackness and the terror in my bosom were too great a contrast with the
gladness and splendor about me, or what it was that so tightly gripped
my heart, I cannot tell to this day; but I know full well that all which
had oppressed me since Abenberger denounced me came rushing down on
my soul as it were, and that I burst into tears and cried out "Yes,
grandmother dear, I have gone through a dreadful, terrible hour! I have
had to withstand the attack of a madman, and hear a horrible curse from
his lips. But it is not that alone, no, verily and indeed! I can, for
that matter, make any man to know his place, were he twice the man that
little Abenberger is; and as to curses, I learnt from a child to mind
my dear father's saying: 'Curse me if you will! What matters it if I may
earn God's blessing!'"

"And you have earned it, honestly earned it," quoth she, drawing me down
to kiss my forehead. Hereupon I ceased weeping and bid my hear