United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Yet Barbara, from the little room where the singers laid aside their cloaks and wraps, had seen Wolf, with her singing master Feys and two other gentlemen, coming toward the New Scales, and correctly guessed the names of the slender, shorter stranger in the sable-trimmed mantle and the big, broad-shouldered, bearded one who accompanied her friend.

The way in which she understood how to discover and bring out the best qualities of every visitor rendered her a very agreeable hostess. Maestro Feys made her acquainted with his professional friends in Ghent, and her opinion of music was soon highly valued among them. Where women choirs were being trained, she was asked to join them, and often took a part which seemed to the others too difficult.

Her old music teacher, Feys, to whom she was so much indebted, had been attacked by slow fever, and she had received him in her house five days ago, and provided with loving devotion for his nursing. The bachelor of seventy had been so ill cared for in his lonely, uncomfortable home that her kind heart had urged her to take charge of him.

Hiltner replied that religion did not enter into the matter. He knew Wolf and his peaceful nature, and therefore hoped that he would be advised that music was a language equally intelligible to all persons of feeling, whatever tongue they spoke and whatever creed they preferred. This opinion was also that of the Catholic maestro Feys, and he had therefore escaped all difficulty.

There was as little cause to object to the visits paid to her by Gombert, Appenzelder, Damian Feys, occasionally some noblemen or guests of the court, and once even by no less a personage than the Bishop of Arras, as to the rides she took every afternoon; for the latter were always under the charge of Herr de Fours, an old equerry of the Emperor, and in the company of several courtiers, among whom Baron Malfalconnet was often included.

Frau Sabina and Master Feys, who, like the much-envied girl, was a professor of the old faith, interceded for her all the more warmly. Besides, it afforded Frau Hiltner scarcely less pleasure to hear Barbara than it did Martina, and she could also fix her eyes with genuine devotion upon the girl's wonderfully beautiful and nobly formed features.

Her old music teacher, Feys, to whom she was so much indebted, had been attacked by slow fever, and she had received him in her house five days ago, and provided with loving devotion for his nursing. The bachelor of seventy had been so ill cared for in his lonely, uncomfortable home that her kind heart had urged her to take charge of him.

Yet she was pleased at the thought of sharing this festal assembly, and she, her companion, and Lamperi all went into ecstasies over the dress she intended to wear, which had just arrived from Brussels. Maestro Feys passed a restless night, and Barbara watched beside his couch for hours.

But, ere Wolf had answered the first queries, some one else made his appearance on the Haid, and the very person who was best fitted to give information about Barbara her teacher, Feys, who had sought Gombert, his famous Brussels companion in art, and was just taking him to a rehearsal of the Convivium musicum.

"Only have patience," Wolf interposed here, secure of victory, and now, slightly vexed with himself for his imprudence in mentioning Martin Luther's name to the old hater of Turks and heretics, he explained that Dr. Hiltner, in the name of the Council, had offered him the position of Damian Feys, Barbara's teacher.