when
she told him in general outlines that, during the Peasant War, fierce
bands had attacked his father's castle, that one of his own bondmen had
slain him with an axe, and that his mother had fled with Wolf to
Ratisbon, where her brother lived as provost of the cathedral. He had
invited her, at the outbreak of the peasant insurrection, to place
herself under his protection.

The old woman had also described to him how, amid great hardships, they
had reached the city in midwinter, and finally that his mother found
Baron Sandhof, her brother, at the point of death, and, after her hope of
having a home with the provost of the cathedral was baffled, she had
taken the veil in the convent of the Dominicans, called here the Black
Penitents. Wolf's foster father, the organist Stenzel, who was closely
connected with his uncle, had rendered this step easier for the deserted
widow by receiving the little boy in his childless home.

Ursel must give him more minute particulars concerning all these things.

His mother, who knew that he was well cared for, had troubled herself
very little about him, and devoted her life to the care of her own
salvation and that of her murdered husband, who had died without the
benefit of the holy sacrament.

When he was fifteen, she closed her eyes on the world, and the hour when,
on her death bed, she had asked of him a vow to be faithful to the
Catholic Church and shut his heart against heresy, was as vividly before
his memory as if she had just passed away.

He did not allude to these things now, for his heart urged him to confide
to the faithful old woman what he thought of Barbara, and the beautiful
hopes with which he had left her.

Ursel closed her eyes for a while and twirled the thumb of the hand she
could use around the other for some time; but at last she gently nodded
the little head framed in her big cap, and said carelessly:

"So you would like to seek a wife, child? Well, well! It comes once to
every one. And you are thinking of Wawerl? It would certainly be
fortunate for the girl. Marriages are made in heaven, and God's mills
grind slowly. If the result is not what you expect, you must not murmur,
and, above all things, don't act rashly. But now I can use my heavy
tongue no longer. Remember Dr. Hiltner. When duty will permit, you'll
find time for another little chat with old Ursel."

Casting a loving farewell glance at Wolf as she spoke, she turned over on
the other side.