came to light once more,
and from that hour she no longer grieved for what he had lost and which a
true mother peradventure might never have missed; indeed as his bodily
health failed, and she shared the care of tending him with Ann, none
could have conceived that he was not verily and indeed her own son.

The evil monster which had crept into my brother's breast grew, thank
Heaven, but slowly; and when the young pair had been wed, with a right
splendid feast, and my brother had taken Ann home to the Schoppers' house
as his dear wife, a glad hope rose up in me that Master Knorr had taken
an over-gloomy view of the matter, and that Herdegen might blossom again
into new strength and his old hearty health. Howbeit it was but his
heart's gladness which lent him so brave and glad an aspect; the sickness
must have its course, and it was as it were a serpent, gnawing silently
at my joy in life, and its bite was all the more cruel by reason that I
might tell no man what it was that hurt me save the old Waldstromers. But
they likewise grew young again after their son's homecoming, and
notwithstanding her feeble frame, Aunt Jacoba saw Margery's eldest son
grow to be six years of age. And she sent him his packet of sweetmeats
the first day he went to school; but when the little lad went to thank
his grandmother, the old dame was gone to her rest; and her husband lived
after her no more than a few months.

One grief only had darkened the latter days of this venerable pair, in
truth it was a heavy one; it was the death of my dear brother Herdegen,
which befell at the end of the fifth year after he was happily married.

At the end of the fourth year his sickness came upon him with more
violence, yet he went forth and back, and ever hoped to be healed, even
when he took to his bed four weeks before the end.

On the very last day, on a certain fine evening in May, it was that he
said to Ann: "Hearken, my treasure, I am surely better! On the day after
tomorrow we will go forth into the sweet Spring, to hear Dame Nightingale
who is singing already, and to see Margery. Oh, out in the forest breezes
blow to heal the sick!"

Yet they went not; two hours later he had departed this life. By ill
fortune at that very time I was at Venice on a matter of business, and
when the tidings came to me that my only beloved brother was dead,
meseemed as though half my being were torn away, aye, and the nobler and
better half; that part which was not