ere the mother,
entreating her, with many tears, to let her have her will. Ann of a
certainty would not now be long under her roof to cherish the younger
children, and it was not in her power as their mother to guide them in
the way in which their father would have them to walk. For this Ulman
Pernhart was the fittest man. Her dead husband had been a schoolmate of
her suitor's, and of his brother the very reverend lord Bishop, and he
had thought highly of Master Ulman. This it was gave her strength to
follow the prompting of her heart. In this way did the mother try to move
her child to look with favor on the desire of her fiery Italian heart,
now shame-faced and coaxing, and anon with tears in her eyes; and albeit
the widow was past five and thirty and her suitor nigh upon fifty, yet no
man seeing the pair together would have made sport of their love. The
Venice lady had lost so little of her youthful beauty and charms that it
was in truth a marvel; and as to Master Pernhart, he was not a man to be
overlooked, even among many.

As he was at this time he might be taken for the very pattern of a
stalwart and upright German mastercraftsman; nay, nor would a knight's
harness of mail have ill-beseemed him. Or ever he had thought of paying
court to Mistress Giovanna I had heard the prebendary Master von Hellfeld
speak of Pernhart as a right good fellow, of whom the city might be
proud; and he then spoke likewise of Master Ulman's brother, who had
become a servant of the Holy Church, and while yet a young man had been
raised to the dignity of a bishop.

When the great schism had come to a happy ending, and one Head, instead
of three, ruled the Church, Pope Martin V. had chosen him to sit in his
council and kept him at Rome, where he was one of the powers of the
Curia.

Albeit his good German name of Pernhart was now changed to Bernardi, he
had not ceased to love his native town and his own kin, and had so
largely added to the wealth and ease of his own mother and his only
brother that the coppersmith had been able to build himself a dwelling
little behind those of the noble citizens. He had been forlorn in his
great house of late, but no such cause as that was needed to move him to
cast his eye on the fair widow of his very reverend brother's best
friend.

While Ann was away in the forest Mistress Giovanna had let Pernhart into
the secret of her daughter's betrothal to Herdegen, and so soon as the
young maid was at home