home she found no pleasant welcome. In her absence the coppersmith
Pernhart had wooed her mother in good earnest, and the eldest daughter
not being on the spot, had sped so well that the widow had yielded. Ann
once made bold to beseech her mother with due reverence to give up her
purpose, but she fell on her child's neck, as though Ann were the mother,
entreating her, with many tears, to let her have her will. Ann of a
certainty would not now be long under her roof to cherish the younger
children, and it was not in her power as their mother to guide them in
the way in which their father would have them to walk. For this Ulman
Pernhart was the fittest man. Her dead husband had been a schoolmate of
her suitor's, and of his brother the very reverend lord Bishop, and he
had thought highly of Master Ulman. This it was gave her strength to
follow the prompting of her heart. In this way did the mother try to
move her child to look with favor on the desire of her fiery Italian
heart, now shame-faced and coaxing, and anon with tears in her eyes; and
albeit the widow was past five and thirty and her suitor nigh upon fifty,
yet no man seeing the pair together would have made sport of their love.
The Venice lady had lost so little of her youthful beauty and charms that
it was in truth a marvel; and as to Master Pernhart, he was not a man to
be overlooked, even among many.

As he was at this time he might be taken for the very pattern of a
stalwart and upright German mastercraftsman; nay, nor would a knight's
harness of mail have ill-beseemed him. Or ever he had thought of paying
court to Mistress Giovanna I had heard the prebendary Master von Hellfeld
speak of Pernhart as a right good fellow, of whom the city might be
proud; and he then spoke likewise of Master Ulman's brother, who had
become a servant of the Holy Church, and while yet a young man had been
raised to the dignity of a bishop.