turned to red. It was immediately plain to the architect how he should
decorate the gate-way. He chiselled his children as angels as they had
appeared to him, bearing a rose-wreath, and in the middle he placed a
pair of compasses, the symbol of an art, to which he now bade a lasting
farewell. On St. John's day 1408, the key-stone of the gate-way was
fixed in, and the Emperor Ruprecht himself spoke the dedicatory
oration. When he wished however to return his imperial thanks to the
workmen, the architect had disappeared. Whilst all the bells were
pealing loudly and filling the Neckar valley with their deep notes, the
Master whom they were honoring, trod along the Michaelspath over the
mountains to the monastery on the Heiligenberg. He became a monk and
gazed from his cell at the tower, reared over the graves of his darling
children, till his two boys once more appeared to him, crowned him with
roses and bore away his soul into Abraham's bosom. This was the story
as told to Lydia by her nurse, and when she thought of angels, the
beauteous bearers of the wreath over the gate-way before which she
daily passed always presented themselves to her memory. None of the
noble statues wrought by Master Colins on the magnificent Otto Heinrich
building had ever come near the impression made by these angels' heads.
One evening after Felix had again been speaking about the games he and
his brother Paul had played in their garden fragrant with roses at
Naples, Lydia dreamt that night, that she was flying in the air above
the Holtermann in the direction of the castle, and just as she was
about to settle down the two angels of the Ruprecht building came
towards her. The one was grave and cold, whilst the other which
resembled Master Felix smiled on her joyously. Presently the one with
the earnest, beauteous expression, which Magister Paul always wore when
teaching opened his mouth and said: "Take Felice." On this she woke up,
hearing also the witch saying distinctly: "the fairer one is the right
one;" frightened she raised her head from the pillow and saw how the
moon shone clearly into her room. Long did she think over this wondrous
dream, in which the dearest impressions of her childhood and the
terrible experiences of the previous weeks were so mixed together, then
she fell asleep once more. The following morning she could not
withstand the temptation of seeing whether the two angels' heads really
resembled the brothers? Everything was qu