little boy and hugged him. Melchior in the mean while hurried to the
entrance door, there he bowed three times and solemnly lifted aloft his
arms toward the evening-star that was just showing itself above the roof
of a house across the market-place.

The old housekeeper noticed this, and rejoiced for she thought that
Melchior was returning thanks to the holy saints for a safe journey, but
she was disillusioned when she heard him open his lips and cry towards
heaven an invocation which was neither German nor Latin, for she knew the
sound of the latter tongue, having heard it so often at mass, but a
combination of strange sounding words more like those that she used to
hear her late master muttering over his work in the laboratory, with his
son's letter before him. It was certainly no Christian prayer and her
heart sank within her. When the doctor had ended the ceremony which for
all she knew might be an invocation of evil spirits, and entered the
house with his wife and child, she went up to him and without a moment's
indecision made the sign of the cross on his breast and another on the
curly head of the child. Melchior laughed at her but did not rebuff her.
Soon the travellers were seated about the neatly laid table in their own
house and Frau Schimmel had her reward in seeing Melchior enjoy the
home-made dishes. And little Zeno--for that was the name of the Court
apothecary's grandchild--drink the good milk and munch the butter cakes
which she had baked to celebrate their arrival. But the young wife hardly
tasted anything.

Did not the food please her? Perhaps she was accustomed in Italy to a
different way of cooking? "Other nations, other customs."

But who could feel annoyed with that heavenly creature?

Frau Schimmel was of the opinion that she had never seen any one to equal
her, and could not bear to take her eyes off her. Yet the appearance of
the wife of her old favorite filled her with forebodings, and suddenly,
though she was by no means superstitious or given to presentiments, she
seemed to see Frau Bianca--so the young Italian was called--lying on her
bier, a light veil over her, and a wreath of lilies-of-the-valley on her
raven hair. A sad quiet face!

Frau Schimmel's vision must have been caused by the young wife's
excessive paleness. "White as snow, black as ebony" fitted her, as well
the beauty of the fairy tale, only "red as blood" was wanting. She was
also as tall and slender as the lilies in the