Opposite the door, was written with charcoal on the wall: "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things."--Ekkehard read it and then asked his lovely guide, "was that the late chaplain's last will?" Praxedis laughed merrily. "He was a pleasant and peace-loving man the late Master Vincentius. 'Comfort and rest are better than many a pound of silver,' was what he often said. But my lady the Duchess, worried him a good deal with her questions; one day she was wanting to know about the stars; the next about herbs and medicine; the day after, about the Holy Bible and the traditions of the church.--'What have you studied for, if you cannot tell me anything?'--she would say, and Master Vincentius's patience was often sorely tried." Praxedis pointed archly to her forehead. "'In the middle of Asia,' he often replied, 'there is a black marble stone; and he who can lift it, knows everything and need not ask any more questions.' He was from Bavaria, Master Vincentius, and I suppose that he wrote down, the quotation from Scripture, to console himself." "Does the Duchess ask so many questions'?" said Ekkehard absently. "That you will soon find out for yourself," replied Praxedis. Ekkehard examined the books on the shelves. "I am sorry for the pigeons, but they will have to go." "Why?" "They have spoilt the whole of the first book on the Gallic wars; and the epistle to the Corinthians is hopelessly and irreparably damaged." "Is that a great loss?" asked Praxedis. "A very great loss!" "Oh, you naughty doves," said Praxedis jestingly. "Come to me, before yonder pious man drives you out, amongst the hawks and falcons," and she called the birds which had quietly remained in their niche; and when they did not come, she threw a ball of white worsted on the table; the male dove flew towards it, believing that it were a new dove. With stately steps he approached the white ball, greeting it with a gentle cooing; and when Praxedis snatched it up, the bird flew on her head. Then she began to sing softly a Greek melody. It was the song of the old, yet ever young singer of Teus. "Tell me, thou pretty birdie, Tell me, from whence thou comest, And whence the balmy fragrance Which from thy snowy pinions Drips down upon the meadow; Who art thou? and what wilt thou?" Ekkehard started up with surprise from the codex, in which he was reading, and threw an almost frightened look on the young girl. If his eye had been more accustomed to see natural grace and beauty, it would probably have rested somewhat longer on the Greek maid. The dove had hopped upon her hand, and she lifted it up with a bended arm. Anacreon's old countryman, who out of a block of Parian marble, created the Venus of Knidos, would have fixed the picture in his memory, if he had witnessed it. "What are you singing," asked Ekkehard, "it sounds like a foreign language." "Why should it not be foreign?"