Margery | Page 8

went on. "Yea, a happy child art thou; for so are all
babes, maids or boys, who come into the world after their father's
death." As I gazed into his face, no less astonished than before, he laid
the gold knob of his cane against his nose and said: "Remember, little
simpleton, the good God would not be what he is, would not be a man
of honor--God forgive the words--if he did not take a babe whom He
had robbed of its father before it had seen the light or had one proof of
his love under His own special care. Mark what I say, child. Is it a
small thing to be the ward of a guardian who is not only Almighty but
true above all truth?" And those words have followed me through all
my life till this very hour.
CHAPTER II.
Thus passed our childhood, as I have already said, in very great
happiness; and by the time that my brothers had left the leading strings
far behind them, and were studying their 'Donatus', Cousin Maud was
teaching me to read and write, and that with much mirth and the most
frolicsome ways. For instance, she would stamp four copies of each
letter out of sweet honey-cakes, and when I knew them well she gave
me these tiny little A. B. C. cakes, and one I ate myself, and gave the
others to my brothers, or Susan, or my cousin. Often I put them in my

satchel to carry them into the woods with me, and give them to my
Cousin Gotz's favorite hound or his cross-beak; for he himself did not
care for sweets. I shall have many things to tell of him and the forest;
even when I was very small it was my greatest joy to be told that we
were going to the woods, for there dwelt the dearest and most faithful
of all our kinsmen: my uncle Waldstromer and his family. The stately
hunting-lodge in which he dwelt as head forester of the Lorenzerwald
in the service of the Emperor and of our town, had greater joys for me
than any other, since not only were there the woods with all their
delights and wonders, but also, besides many hounds, a number of
strange beasts, and other pastimes such as a town child knows little of.
But what I most loved was the only son of my uncle and aunt
Waldstromer, for whose dog I kept my cake letters; for though Cousin
Gotz was older than I by eleven years, he nevertheless did not scorn me,
but whenever I asked him to show me this or that, or teach me some
light woodland craft, he would leave his elders to please me.
When I was six years old I went to the forest one day in a scarlet velvet
hood, and after that he ever called me his little "Red riding-hood," and I
liked to be called so; and of all the boys and lads I ever met among my
brothers' friends or others I deemed none could compare with Gotz; my
guileless heart was so wholly his that I always mentioned his name in
my little prayers.
Till I was nine we had gone out into the forest three or four times in
each year to pass some weeks; but after this I was sent to school, and as
Cousin Maud took it much to heart, because she knew that my father
had set great store by good learning, we paid such visits more rarely;
and indeed, the strict mistress who ruled my teaching would never have
allowed me to break through my learning for pastime's sake.
Sister Margaret, commonly called the Carthusian nun, was the name of
the singular woman who was chosen to be my teacher. She was at once
the most pious and learned soul living; she was Prioress of a Carthusian
nunnery and had written ten large choirbooks, besides others. Though
the rule of her order forbade discourse, she was permitted to teach.

Oh, how I trembled when Cousin Maud first took me to the convent.
As a rule my tongue was never still, unless it were when Herdegen sang
to me, or thought aloud, telling me his dreams of what he would do
when he had risen to be chancellor, or captain-in chief of the Imperial
army, and had found a count's or a prince's daughter to carry home to
his grand castle. Besides, the wild wood was a second home to me, and
now I was shut up in a convent where the silence about me crushed me
like a too tight bodice. The walls of the vast antechamber, where I was
left to wait, were covered with various texts in Latin, and several times
repeated