Thus had my aunt gained her end; but when she strove to carry Ann away
from her home and kindred, and keep her in the forest as her own child--
to which Master Pernhart and his mother gave their consent--she failed in
the attempt. Ann was steadfast in her desire to remain with her mother
and the children, and more especially with her deaf and dumb brother,
Mario. If my aunt should at any time need her she had but to command
her, and she would gladly go to her, this very day if she desired it;
howbeit duly to work out her spinning--and by this she meant that she
bore Riklein in mind--she must ever do her part for her own folk, with
a clear conscience.

Thus it was fixed that Ann should go to the Forest lodge to stay till
Christmas and the New Year were past, only she craved a few hours delay
that she might remove all doubt from the Magister's mind. I offered to
take upon myself this painful task; but she altogether rejected this,
and how rightly she judged was presently proved by her cast-off suitor's
demeanor; inasmuch as he was ever after her faithful servant and called
her his gracious work-fellow. When she had told him of her decision he
swore, well-nigh with violence, to become a monk, and to make over his
inheritance to a convent, but Ann, with much eloquence, besought him
to do no such thing, and laid before him the grace of living to make
others happy; she won him over to join our little league and whereas he
confessed that he was in no wise fit for the life, she promised that she
would seek out the poor and needy and claim the aid only of his learning
and his purse. And some time after she made him a gift of an alms-bag on
which she had wrought the words, "Ann, to her worthy work-fellow."

Here I am bound to tell that, not to my aunt alone, but to me likewise
did the good work which the old organist had pointed out to my friend,
seem a vain imagining when it had led her to accept a lover whom she