"A bad omen for our chase," said a young gentleman who rode near the prince. The prince frowned. He had just been thinking the same thing, but it did not please him to have the thought put into words. He made the sign of the cross. It was a new accomplishment, and he was rather proud of it. "Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!" said he, piously. And then he frowned again, for he thought he saw a glance of derision pass between his two young cousins, Victor and Maurice of Nassau. "Whose is the funeral, Franz?" "'Tis the youngest son of Gertrude Reinhart—the woman whose calf was killed the other night," answered Franz the huntsman, a man who had grown gray in the service of the landgrave and his father. "The lad was an innocent—a witless child," he added. "He crept out at evening to see the new calf, and the wolves fell upon the poor creature and killed it before his eyes. They would have done the same by him, but the poor innocent had sense enough to climb upon the roof of the forge, or else the angels set him there. Who knows?" "Angels do not interfere for the salvation of heretics, my good Franz," said the prince, pompously. "Humph!" answered Franz, with little respect, as it seemed, either for the speech or the speaker. "Anyhow, he was found on the roof." "But the angels could not have put him there; do you think so, my father?" he asked, turning to a dark gentleman who rode at his left hand. "I understand that the lad was an innocent, or witless child," answered the priest, gravely, though with a little twinkle in his eye; "in which case such an interference might have taken place." "Go on, Franz," said the prince. "What was the end of the matter?" "The end was that the villagers heard the noise and turned out with what arms they had, and Hans and myself came down with the dogs and drove the brutes away," answered Franz. "The poor lad was not hurt, but so frightened that he never held up his head again. It is a sore blow to poor Gertrude, who was bound up in him." "Why, he could never be anything but an encumbrance to her; he would never have earned his own living," said the prince. "She ought to be thankful to be rid of such a trouble." The prince did not mean to be hard-hearted, but he was rather stupid and ignorant even for a German prince of that time, and he really thought so. "I fancy women are not often glad to part with their children," said the priest, gravely, "and I have observed that they cling most to those who most need their care." "Here they come," said Count Maurice, and as the little funeral train reached the place where the riders had drawn up, he took off his hat. The other gentlemen did the same, and even the prince raised his beaver, almost, as it seemed, against his will. "Poor woman! What a tragedy is in her face!" observed Count Maurice, in an undertone, to his next neighbour. "Is she a widow, I wonder?"