d the dark ante-chamber into
the further one, where wax lights were burning in a double candlestick,
and lo! Ann was on her knees by the sick lady's couch, like to the
linden-tree which the storm had overthrown yesternight; and she hid her
face in my aunt's lap and sobbed so violently that her slender body shook
as though in a fever. And Aunt Jacoba had laid her two hands on Ann's
head, as it were in blessing. And I saw first one large tear, and then
many more, run down the face of this very woman who had cast out her own
fair son. Often had I marked on her little finger a certain ring in which
a little white thing was set; yet was this no splinter of the bone of a
Saint, but the first tooth her banished son had shed. And, when she
deemed that no man saw her, she would press her hand to her lips and kiss
the little tooth with fervent love. And now, whereas love had waked up
again in her heart, that son had his part and share in it; for albeit
none dared make mention of him in her presence she ever loved him as the
apple of her eye.

I was no listener, yet could I not shut mine ears; I heard how the frail
old lady exhorted the love-sick maid, and bid her trust in God, and in
Herdegen's faithfulness. Also I heard her speak well indeed of my
brother's spirit and will as noble and upright; and she promised Ann to
uphold her to the best of her power.

She bid her favorite farewell with a fond kiss, and many comforting
words; and as she did so I minded me of a wondrously fair maiden, the
daughter of Pernhart the coppersmith, known to young and old in the town
as fair Gertrude, who, each time I had beheld her of late, meseemed had
grown even sadder and paler, and whom I now knew that I should never see
more, inasmuch as that only yestereve Uncle Christian had told us, with
tears in his eyes, that this sweet maid had died of pining, and had been
buried only a day or two since with much pomp. Now my aunt had heard
these tidings, and she had shaken her head in silence and folded her
hands, as it were in prayer, fixing her eyes on the ground.

Cousin Gotz and Herdegen--fair Gertrude and my Ann; what made them so
unlike that my aunt should bring herself to mete their bonds of love with
so various a measure?

I quitted the room when Ann came forth, and outside the door I clasped
her in my arms; and in the last hour we spent together at the forest
lodge she bid me greet her heart's beloved from her, and gave me for him
the last O