his daughter when she at last paused and
extended her hand to him. He leaned comfortably farther back in his
arm-chair as he spoke, but she kissed him lightly on the forehead, while
her large blue eyes shone with cheerful content.

She had gained her object.

When she sang this song she was safe from any troublesome questions.
Besides, Gombert, of Bruges, the director of the imperial orchestra, who
had arrived in Ratisbon that very day, was the composer of the charming
bird-song, and she knew from her singing master that, though her voice
was best adapted to solemn hymns, nothing in the whole range of secular
music suited it better than this "Car la saison est bonne." She longed
for the praise of such a musician, and Wolf must accompany her to him.

The young knight had not only been joyfully surprised, but most deeply
delighted by the bewitching execution of this most charmingly arranged
refrain.

Maestro Gombert and his colleague Appenzelder, the conductor of the boy
choir, must hear it on the morrow. And how gladly Barbara consented to
fulfil this wish!

She had received the greatest praise, she said, in the motet of the
Blessed Virgin, by Josquin de Pres, in the noble song 'Ecce tu pulchra
es'. Her teacher specially valued this master and his countryman Gombert,
and his exquisite compositions were frequently and gladly sung at the
Convivium.

This pleased Wolf, for he had a right to call himself, not only the
pupil, but the friend of the director of the orchestra. As, seizing the
lute, he began Gombert's Shepherd and Shepherdess, Barbara, unasked,
commenced the song.

When, after Barbara's bell-like, well-trained voice had sung many other
melodies, the young knight at last took leave of his old friends, he
whispered that he had not expected to find home so delightful.

She, too, went to rest in a joyous, happy mood, and, as she lay in her
narrow bed, asked herself whether she could not renounce her ardent
longing for wealth and splendour and be content with a modest life at
Wolf's side.

She liked him, he would cherish her, and lovingly devote the great skill
which he had gained in Italy and the Netherlands to the final cultivation
of her voice. Her house would become a home of art, her life would be
pervaded and ennobled by song and music. What grander existence could
earth offer?

Before she found an answer to this question, sleep closed her weary eyes.
But when, the next morning, the cobbler's one-e