s about to depart, I
made so bold as to beseech him; and he plainly showed me that I had
not made him wroth or troubled him whereas he willingly granted me to
journey with him, and without reproof. Thus I fared with him to the
great and mighty city of Saint Mark, which I had ever longed to behold
with my bodily eyes. I never went beyond seas, yet we journeyed as
far as Rome, and there, under the protection and guidance of my lord
Cardinal, I spent many never-to-be-forgotten days by the side of my
Gotz.

But one thing at a time; some day, if my many years may suffer, I will
write more concerning these matters.

How well my aunt and the Cardinal were minded towards each other would
be hard to describe, albeit now and again they fell to friendly strife;
the reverend prelate found it hard to depart from the lodge and from
that strange woman, whose clear and busy brain in her sickly body came,
in after times, to be accounted as one of the great marvels of her
native town. Howbeit, it was his duty to pass Christmas-eve with his
venerable mother. He plighted Gotz and me as he had promised us, and to
his life's end he was ever a kind and honored friend and patron to us
and to our children.

Ann was ever his favorite, and ere he quitted Nuremberg, he bestowed
on her a dowry such as few indeed of our richest nobles could give with
their daughters.

Christmas-eve, which we spent at the lodge with our parents and the
Chaplain and my dear godfather, uncle Christian Pfinzing, was a right
glorious festival, bringing gladness to our souls; yet was it to end
with the first peril that befell our love's young joy. After the others
had gone to their chambers, and Gotz had indeed given me a last parting
kiss, he stayed me a moment and besought me to be ready early in the
morning to ride with him to the hut of Martin the bee keeper, whose wife
had been his nurse. On many a Christmas morning had he greeted the good
woman with some little posy, and now he had not found one hour to spare
her since his home-coming. Now I would fain have granted this simple
request but that I had privily, with the Chaplain's help, made the
school children to learn a Christmas carol wherewith to wake the parents
and Gotz from their slumbers. Thus, when he bid me hold myself in
readiness at an early hour, I besought him to make it later. This,
however, by no means pleased him; he answered that the good dame was
wont of old to look for him full early on Christm