"Certainly, certainly."

"Zounds, he has grown. We'll gladly enlist you now, young sir. Can you
remember me?"

"Of course I do," replied Ulrich. "You sang the song about 'good
fortune'"

"Have you recollected that?" asked the lansquenet. "Foolish stuff!
Believe it or not, I composed the merry little thing when in great sorrow
and poverty, just to warm my heart. Now I'm prosperous, and can rarely
succeed in writing a verse. Fires are not needed in summer."

"Where have you been lodged?"

"Here in the 'old cat.' That's a good name for this Goliath's palace."

When Eitelfritz had enquired about the jester and drunk a goblet of wine
with Moor and Ulrich, he took leave of them both, and soon after the
artist went to the city alone.

At the usual hour Isabella Coello came with her duenna to the studio, and
instantly noticed the change Sophonisba's portrait had undergone.

Ulrich stood beside her before the easel, while she examined his work.

The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once
pausing in her scrutiny to ask: "And you, you painted this--without the
master?"

Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: "I suppose he thinks it
is my own work; and yet--I can't understand it."

"But I can," she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the
portrait.

At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at him
with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost
depths of Ulrich's heart were stirred: "How glad I am! I could never
accomplish such a work. You will become a great artist, a very
distinguished one, like Moor. Take notice, you surely will. How beautiful
that is!--I can find no words to express my admiration."

At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich's brain, and either the fiery
wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl's prophetic words, or both,
fairly intoxicated him. Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he seized
Isabella's little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and
enthusiastically exclaimed: "Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled,
Belica; I will be an artist. Art, Art alone! The master said everything
else is vain--trivial. Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is
right."

"Yes, yes," cried Isabella; "you must become a great artist."

"And if I don't succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this. . . ."

Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away,
perhaps to-morrow, so he cont