The Emperor Rudolph accepted the homage, but he clasped the young lord
of Reichenbach to his heart like a beloved son, and as he placed Eva's
hand in his, and she raised her beautiful face to him, he stooped and
kissed her with fatherly kindness.

When Wolff entreated him to bless his alliance in the place of his
suffering father, he did so gladly; and Els also willingly offered him
her lips; when he requested the same favour her sister had granted him,
that he might boast of the kisses bestowed on him by the two beautiful
Es, Nuremberg's fairest maidens.

CHAPTER XIX.

Heinz heeded Cordula's warning. In the royal hall every one would have
been justified in believing him a very cool lover, but during the walk
with Eva to the lodgings of his cousin Maier of Silenen, where the
Schurlins, Ortliebs, Wolff, and Herr Pfinzing and his wife were to meet
to celebrate the betrothal, the moon, whose increasing crescent was
again in the sky, beheld many things which gave her pleasure.

The priest soon united Heinz and Eva, but the celestial pilgrim
willingly resigned the power formerly exerted over the maiden to the
husband, who clasped her to his heart with tender love.

Luna was satisfied with Wolff and Els also. She afterwards watched
the fate of both couples in Swabia and Nuremberg, and when the showy
escutcheon was removed from the Eysvogel mansion, and a more modest one
put in its place, she was gratified.

She soon saw that a change had also been made in the one above the door
of the Ortlieb house, for the Ortlieb coat of arms, in accordance with
the family name, had borne the figure of a cat, the animal which loves
the place,--[Ort, place.]--the house to which it belongs, but on the
wedding day of the two beautiful Es the Emperor Rudolph had commanded
that, in perpetual remembrance of its two loveliest daughters, the
Ortliebs should henceforward bear on their escutcheon two linden leaves
under tendrils, the symbol of loyal steadfastness.

When, a few months after Wolff's union with his heart's beloved, the
coffin of old Countess Rotterbach, adorned with a handsome coronet upon
the costly pall, was borne out of the house at the quiet evening hour,
she thought there was no cause to mourn.

On the other hand, she grieved when, for a long time, she did not see
old Casper Eysvogel, whose tall figure she had formerly watched with
pleasure when, at a late hour, he returned from some banquet, his
bearing erect, a