as, but silence had been
enjoined upon her, and she was a woman who knew how to refrain from
speech.

She and her daughter Martina--who during Wolf's absence had grown to
maidenhood--were sincerely glad to see him; he had been the favourite
schoolmate of her adopted son, Erasmus Eckhart, and a frequent guest in
her household. Yet she only confirmed to the modest young man, who shrank
from asking her more minute questions, that the matter concerned an offer
whose acceptance promised to make him a prosperous man. She was expecting
her Erasmus home from Wittenberg that evening or early the next morning,
and to find Wolf here again would be a welcome boon to him.

What had the syndic in view? Evidently something good. Old Ursel should
help counsel him. The doctor liked her, and, in spite of the severe
illness, she had kept her clever brain.

He would take Barbara into his confidence, too, for what concerned him
concerned her also.

But when he turned from the Haidplatz into Red Cock Street he saw three
fine horses in front of the cantor house. A groom held their bridles. The
large chestnut belonged to the servant. The other two-a big-boned bay and
an unusually wellformed Andalusian gray, with a small head and long
sweeping tail--had ladies' saddles.

The sister of rich old Peter Schlumperger, who was paying court to
Barbara, had dismounted from the former. She wanted to persuade the young
girl, in her brother's name, to join the party to the wood adjoining
Prfifening Abbey.

At first she had opposed the marriage between the man of fifty and
Barbara; but when she saw that her brother's affection had lasted two
years, nay, had increased more and more, and afforded new joy to the
childless widower, she had made herself his ally.

She, too, was widowed and had a large fortune of her own. Her husband, a
member of the Kastenmayr family, had made her his heiress. Blithe young
Barbara, whose voice and beauty she knew how to value, could bring new
life and brightness into the great, far too silent house. The girl's
poverty was no disadvantage; she and her brother had long found it
difficult to know what to do with the vast wealth which, even in these
hard times, was constantly increasing, and the Blomberg family was as
aristocratic as their own.

The widow's effort to persuade the girl to ride had not been in vain, for
Wolf met Frau Kastenmayr on the stairs, and Barbara followed in a plain
dark riding habit, which had been