Moritz stroked his blond mustache reflectively. “I would be glad to see Luther in such an owl’s nest. There is one place possible, if the Saxon court will suffer it;--the Wartburg.” “The great castle of Thuringia? Nothing safer. But who is its governor?” “My own uncle, Von Steinitz; transferred from Wittenberg. Have you not heard it?” “Better friend to Luther does not breathe. What if the thing could be managed! But, praise heaven, we have a respite, and my wits are too dull to-day to outwit a sheep, much less the Monsignori. Let us talk of other things.” Then I asked him about his journey to Worms, and the welfare of his aunt and sister, whereat his brow clouded, but he told me readily. The abbess had need to visit Worms on the business of her order, some appeal to the Pope’s Legates as to a new “tenth” laid by the Vatican upon the Abbey lands. She had, he thought, taken Ilsa with her as travelling companion more because she distrusted leaving the young nun alone at Quedlinburg, than because she found her company congenial. She could not well refuse Moritz’s proffered escort, because it was notorious that the roads were infested by “free ritters,” to whom an abbess was no more sacred than a fat burgomaster; but all the way she had taken pains that Moritz and Ilsa should speak together as little as possible. As for the abbess’s opinion of Luther, it had been one of uncompromising hostility. On the afternoon of the great ordeal she, with Ilsa and many other ladies, had listened to the great heretic through a grille above the hall. She had professed loud expectations that at the last “his father the devil” would forsake the friar, and leave him recanting and confounded. After the audience Moritz had seen his aunt and sister, and in the enthusiasm of the moment had heaped all manner of praise on Luther. His words had been flint against the abbess’s steel. A bitter dialogue had followed. Ilsa had taken sides warmly with her brother and incidentally with the heretic. Her aunt had turned on her in fury, had charged her with violating her sacred vows, “in hope, and thought, and everything but deed,” and finally had forbidden her “on her obedience as a nun,” to speak again to her “blasphemous and heretical brother.” The scene had ended with the abbess suddenly quitting the inn where the party had lodged, and seeking apartments at the castle. And as for Moritz, he, poor fellow, could only “bite his thumbs and look sour while his sister was led away.” The abbess, he hoped, would presently relent, “but sometimes he thought it more profitable to beseech a stone horse-post than his holy Aunt Theckla.” “Moritz,” said I, directly, “is your sister Ilsa happy?” “Happy?” he reëchoed, “I think she is one of the most miserable creatures in all the world.”