What could a man
have been under the granddame's breeding?"
"It becomes not thee to say so!" returned Friedel. "Nay, he could
learn to love our mother."
"One sign of grace, but doubtless she loved him the better for their
having been so little together. Her heart is at peace, believing him
in his grave; but let her imagine him in Schlangenwald's dungeon, or
some Moorish galley, if thou likest it better, and how will her mild
spirit be rent!"
"It might be so," said Friedel, thoughtfully. "It may be best to
keep this secret from her till we have fuller certainty."
"Agreed then," said Ebbo, "unless the Wildschloss fellow should again
molest us, when his answer is ready."
"Is this just towards my mother?" said Friedel.
"Just! What mean'st thou? Is it not our office and our dearest
right to shield our mother from care? And is not her chief wish to
be rid of the Wildschloss suit?"
Nevertheless Ebbo was moody all the way home, but when there he
devoted himself in his most eager and winning way to his mother,
telling her of Master Gottfried's woodcuts, and Hausfrau Johanna's
rheumatism, and of all the news of the country, in especial that the
Kaisar was at Lintz, very ill with a gangrene in his leg, said to
have been caused by his habit of always kicking doors open, and that
his doctors thought of amputation, a horrible idea in the fifteenth
century.
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