Appenzelder fixed his eyes helplessly upon the ground.

“I’d rather put a hoarse sailor or a croaking owl into my choir henceforward than such a trilling fair one, who has more whims in her head than hairs on it.”

Then he went out to look for Wolf, for he, as well as Gombert, had noticed that he possessed a certain degree of influence over Barbara.  What should he say to their Majesties if they ordered the choir for the late meal and missed the voice about which the Queen had said so many complimentary things in the Emperor’s name?

Wolf had told him that he was summoned to the Town Hall.  The maestro followed him, and when he learned there that he had gone to the syndic, Dr. Hiltner, he inquired the way to this gentleman’s house.

But the knight was no longer to be found there.  For the third time the busy magistrate was not at home, but he had been informed that the syndic expected him that afternoon, as he wished to discuss a matter of importance.  Dr. Hiltner’s wife knew what it was, but silence had been enjoined upon her, and she was a woman who knew how to refrain from speech.

She and her daughter Martina—­who during Wolf’s absence had grown to maidenhood—­were sincerely glad to see him; he had been the favourite schoolmate of her adopted son, Erasmus Eckhart, and a frequent guest in her household.  Yet she only confirmed to the modest young man, who shrank from asking her more minute questions, that the matter concerned an offer whose acceptance promised to make him a prosperous man.  She was expecting her Erasmus home from Wittenberg that evening or early the next morning, and to find Wolf here again would be a welcome boon to him.

What had the syndic in view?  Evidently something good.  Old Ursel should help counsel him.  The doctor liked her, and, in spite of the severe illness, she had kept her clever brain.

He would take Barbara into his confidence, too, for what concerned him concerned her also.

But when he turned from the Haidplatz into Red Cock Street he saw three fine horses in front of the cantor house.  A groom held their bridles.  The large chestnut belonged to the servant.  The other two-a big-boned bay and an unusually wellformed Andalusian gray, with a small head and long sweeping tail—­had ladies’ saddles.

The sister of rich old Peter Schlumperger, who was paying court to Barbara, had dismounted from the former.  She wanted to persuade the young girl, in her brother’s name, to join the party to the wood adjoining Prfifening Abbey.

At first she had opposed the marriage between the man of fifty and Barbara; but when she saw that her brother’s affection had lasted two years, nay, had increased more and more, and afforded new joy to the childless widower, she had made herself his ally.

She, too, was widowed and had a large fortune of her own.  Her husband, a member of the Kastenmayr family, had made her his heiress.  Blithe young Barbara, whose voice and beauty she knew how to value, could bring new life and brightness into the great, far too silent house.  The girl’s poverty was no disadvantage; she and her brother had long found it difficult to know what to do with the vast wealth which, even in these hard times, was constantly increasing, and the Blomberg family was as aristocratic as their own.