But, soon after, she remembered many things which she had formerly believed impossible, yet which, through unexpected influence, had happened.
Then torturing uneasiness seized her. She anxiously clasped her emaciated hands, and from her troubled bosom rose the prayer that the Lord would preserve her darling from the fulfilment of the most ardent desire of his heart.
CHAPTER VIII.
Wolf’s first walk took him to the Golden Cross, the lodgings of the Emperor Charles and his court. The sky had clouded again, and a keen northwest wind was blowing across the Haidplatz and waving the banner on the lofty square battlemented tower at the right of the stately old edifice.
It had originally belonged to the Weltenburg family as a strong offensive and defensive building, then frequently changed hands.
The double escutcheon on the bow-window was that of the Thun and Fugger von Reh families, who had owned it in Wolf’s childhood.
Now he glanced up to see whether young Herr Crafft, to whom the building now belonged, had not also added an ornament to it. But when Wolf’s gaze wandered so intently from the tower to the bow-window, and from the bow-window to the great entrance door, it was by no means from pleasure or interest in the exterior of the Golden Cross, but because Barbara had confessed that the nineteen-year-old owner of the edifice, who was still a minor, was also wooing her.
What was the probable value of this stately structure, this aristocratic imperial abode? How rich its owner was! yet she, the brilliant young beauty who had grown up in poverty, disdained young Crafft because her heart did not attract her to him.
So, in this case, faithful Ursel must deceive herself and misjudge the girl, for the old woman’s strangely evasive words had revealed plainly enough that she did not consider Barbara the right wife for him.