I took my pleasure right gladly to the
sound of the music, and I verily delighted in the dance. But albeit I
found no lack of young ladies my friends, and still less of youths who
would fain win my favor, I nevertheless lost not the feeling that I had
left part of my very being at home; nay, that I scarce had a right to
these joys, since my brothers were in a distant land and Ann could not
share them with me, and while I was taking my pleasure she had the
heart-ache.

Then was there a second dance, and a third and fourth; and at home there
came a whole troop of young men in their best apparel to ask of Cousin
Maud, each after his own fashion, to be allowed to pay court to me; but
albeit they were all of good family, and to many a one I felt no dislike,
I felt nothing at all like love as I imagined it, and I would have
nothing to say to any one of them. And all this I took with a light
heart, for which Cousin Maud many a time,--and most rightly--reproved me.

But at that time, and yet more as the months went on, I hardly knew my
own mind; another fate than my own weighed most on my soul; and I thought
so little of my own value that meseemed it could add to no man's
happiness to call me his. All else in life passed before my eyes like a
shadow; a time came when all joy was gone from me, and my suitors sought
me in vain in the dancing-hall, for a great and heavy grief befell me.

All was at an end--even now I scarce can bear to write the words--between
Ann and Herdegen; and by no fault of hers, but only and wholly by reason
of his great and unpardonable sin.

But I will write down in order how it came about. So early as at
Martinmas I heard from Cousin Maud--and my grand-uncle had told her--that
Herdegen had quitted Padua and that it was his intent to take the degree
of doctor at Paris whither the famous Gerson's great genius was drawing
the studious youth of all lands; and his reason for this was that a
bloody fray had made the soil of Italy too hot for his feet. "These
tidings boded evil; all the more as neither we nor Ann had a word from
Herdegen in his own hand to tell us that he had quitted the country and
his school. Then, in my fear and grief, I could not help going to my
grand-uncle, but he would have nothing to say to me or to Cousin Maud, or
else he put us off with impatient answers, or empty words that meant
nothing. Thus we lived in dread and sorrow, till at last, a few days
before Pernhart was married, a l