ve to grow old and grey, never shall I behold aught more
beautiful than the vision of that white-robed girlish figure on the
stairs."

True and steadfast Biberli sighed faintly. Love for Eva Ortlieb held his
master as if in a vise; but a Schorlin seemed to him far too good a match
for a Nuremberg maiden who had grown up among sacks of pepper and chests
of goods and, moreover, was a somnambulist. He looked higher for his
Heinz, and had already found the right match for him. So, turning to him
again, he said earnestly:

"Drive the bewitching vision from your mind, Sir Heinz. You don't
know--but I could tell you some tales about women who walk in their sleep
by moonlight."

"Well?" asked Heinz eagerly.

"As a maiden," Biberli continued impressively, with the pious intention
of guarding his master from injury, "the somnambulist merely runs the
risk of falling from the roof, or whatever accident may happen to a
sleepwalker; but if she enters the estate of holy matrimony, the evil
power which has dominion over her sooner or later transforms her at
midnight into a troll, which seizes her husband's throat in his sleep and
strangles him."

"Nursery tales!" cried Heinz angrily, but Biberli answered calmly:

"It can make no difference to you what occurs in the case of such
possessed women, for henceforward the Ortlieb house will be closed
against you. And--begging your pardon--it is fortunate. For, my lord, the
horse mounted by the first Schorlin--the chaplain showed it to you in the
picture--came from the ark in which Noah saved it with the other animals
from the deluge, and the first Lady Schorlin whom the family chronicles
mention was a countess. Your ancestresses came from citadels and castles;
no Schorlin ever yet brought his bride from a tradesman's house. You, the
proudest of them all, will scarcely think of making such an error, though
it is true--"

"Ernst Ortlieb, spite of his trade, is a man of knightly lineage, to whom
the king of arms opens the lists at every tournament!" exclaimed Heinz
indignantly.

"In the combat with blunt weapons," replied Biberli contemptuously.

"Nay, for the jousts and single combat," cried Heinz excitedly. "The
Emperor Frederick himself dubbed Herr Ernst a knight."

"You know best," replied Biberli modestly. But his coat of arms, like his
entry, smells of cloves and pepper. Here is another, however, who, like
your first ancestress, has a countess's title, and who has a right--My