And how gladly Barbara consented to fulfil this wish! She had received the greatest praise, she said, in the motet of the Blessed Virgin, by Josquin de Pres, in the noble song 'Ecce tu pulchra es'.

Her teacher specially valued this master and his countryman Gombert, and his exquisite compositions were frequently and gladly sung at the Convivium.
This pleased Wolf, for he had a right to call himself, not only the pupil, but the friend of the director of the orchestra.

As, seizing the lute, he began Gombert's Shepherd and Shepherdess, Barbara, unasked, commenced the song.
When, after Barbara's bell-like, well-trained voice had sung many other melodies, the young knight at last took leave of his old friends, he whispered that he had not expected to find home so delightful.
She, too, went to rest in a joyous, happy mood, and, as she lay in her narrow bed, asked herself whether she could not renounce her ardent longing for wealth and splendour and be content with a modest life at Wolf's side.
She liked him, he would cherish her, and lovingly devote the great skill which he had gained in Italy and the Netherlands to the final cultivation of her voice.

Her house would become a home of art, her life would be pervaded and ennobled by song and music.

What grander existence could earth offer?
Before she found an answer to this question, sleep closed her weary eyes.