If it arrived in time, the profits would cover a great portion of the losses of the past two years, and the house would again be secure.

If the worst should befall, how would his family submit to deprivation, perhaps even to penury?
He had less fear of his grandmother's outbursts of wrath, but what would become of his feeble mother, who was as dependent as a child on her own mother?
Yet he loved her; he felt deeply troubled by the thought of the severe humiliation which menaced her.

His sister Isabella, too, was dear to him, in spite of her husband, the reckless Sir Seitz Siebenburg, in whose hands the gold paid from the coffers of the firm melted away, yet who was burdened with a mountain of debts.
Wolff had left orders at home to have his horse saddled.

He had intended only to wave a greeting to his Els and then ride to Neumarkt, or, if necessary, as far as Ingolstadt, to meet the wains.
A word of farewell to the new acquaintance, who was probably destined to be his brother-in, law, and then--But just at that moment Heinz approached, and in reply to Wolff's low question "And your lady's colour ?" he answered joyously, pointing to the breast of his doublet: "I am carrying the messenger which promises to inform me, here on my heart.
In the darkness it was silent; but the bright moonlight yonder will loose its tongue, unless the characters here are too unlike those of the prayer-book." Drawing out Eva's little roll as he spoke, he approached a brightly lighted spot, pointed to the ribbon which fastened it, and exclaimed: "Doubtless she used her own colour to tie it.

Blue, the pure, exquisite blue of her eyes! I thought so Forget-me-not blue! The most beautiful of colours.