into the world
under thy laws, have little before us in life but shame and the scorn of
men!"

"Nay, thou quite mistakest the matter, dame; these privileges were first
bestowed on thy families in reward for good services, I make no doubt, and
it was long accounted profitable to be of this office."

"I do not say that in a darker age, when oppression stalked over the land,
and the best were barbarous as the worst to-day, some of those of whom we
are born may not have been fierce and cruel enough to take upon themselves
this office with good will; but I deny that any short of Him who holds the
universe in his hand, and who controls an endless future to compensate for
the evils of the present time, has the power to say to the son, that he
shall be the heritor of the father's wrongs!"

"How! dost question the doctrine of descents? We shall next hear thee
dispute the rights of the buergerschaft!"

"I know nothing, Herr Bailiff, of the nice distinctions of your rights in
the city, and wish to utter naught for or against. But an entire life of
contumely and bitterness is apt to become a life of thoughtfulness and
care; and I see sufficient difference between the preservation of
privileges fairly earned, though even these may and do bring with them
abuses hard to be borne, and the unmerited oppression of the offspring for
the ancestors' faults. There is little of that justice which savors of
Heaven in this, and the time will come when a fearful return will be made
for wrongs so sore!"

"Concern for thy pretty daughter, good Marguerite, causes thee to speak
strongly."

"Is not the daughter of a headsman and a headsman's wife their offspring,
as much as the fair maiden who sits near thee is the child of the noble at
her side? Am I to love her less, that she is despised by a cruel world?
Had I not the same suffering at the birth, the same joy in the infant
smile, the same hope in the childish promise, and the same trembling for
her fate when I consented to trust her happiness to another, as she that
bore that more fortunate but not fairer maiden hath had in her? Hath God
created two natures--two yearnings for the mother--two longings for our
children's weal--those of the rich and honored, and those of the crushed
and despised?"

"Go to, good Marguerite; thou puttest the matter altogether in a manner
that is unusual. Are our reverenced usages nothing--our solemn edicts
--our city's rule--and our resolution to govern and th