ber of the Nuremberg Council must be well acquainted
with the girl, for his eyes had scarcely met hers ere a strange smile
flitted over his grave, manly face.

Now--was it in jest or earnest?--he even shook his finger at her. He
stopped in front of her a moment, too, and Dietel heard him exclaim:

"So here you are! On the highway again, in spite of everything?"

The distance which separated them and the loud talking of the guests
prevented the waiter's hearing her reply, "The captive bird can not
endure the cage long, Herr Lienhard," far less the words, added in a
lower tone:

"Yet flight has been over since my fall at Augsburg. My foot lies buried
there with many other things which will never return. I can only move on
wheels behind the person who takes me." Then she paused and ventured to
look him full in the face. Her eyes met his beaming with a radiant light,
but directly after they were dimmed by a mist of tears. Yet she forced
them back, though the deep suffering from which they sprung was
touchingly apparent in the tone of her voice, as she continued:

"I have often wished, Herr Lienhard, that the cart was my coffin and the
tavern the graveyard."

Dietel noticed the fit of coughing which followed this speech, and the
hasty movement with which the Nuremberg patrician thrust his hand into
his purse and tossed Kuni three coins. They did not shine with the dull
white lustre of silver, but with the yellow glitter of gold. The waiter's
eyes were sharp and he had his own ideas about this unprecedented
liberality.

The travelling companions of the aristocratic burgomaster and ambassadors
of the proud city of Nuremberg had also noticed this incident.

After they had taken their seats at the handsomely ornamented table,
Wilibald Pirckheimer bent toward the ear of his young friend and
companion in office, whispering:

"The lovely wife at home whom you toiled so hard to win, might, I know,
rest quietly, secure in the possession of all the charms of foam-born
Aphrodite, yet I warn you. Whoever is as sure of himself as you cares
little for the opinion of others. And yet we stand high, friend Lienhard,
and therefore are seen by all; but the old Argus who watches for his
neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes, while among the gods three
are blind--Justice, Happiness, and Love. Besides, you flung gold to
yonder worthless rabble. I would rather have given it to the travelling
musicians. They, like us humanists, are