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Mass was over, and the congregation moved slowly through the shadowy aisles out into the starlit night. But Gabriel sat still, his head resting against the stone pillar, his dead eyes fixed upon the Sacrament House, and upon the sculptured Christ rising triumphant from the grave.

* * * * *

Four weeks had gone by since the body of the humpback had been carried sorrowfully past the stations of the Seilersgasse into the quiet churchyard beyond. The dusk of a winter evening shrouded the empty streets when a stranger, of grave demeanor and in the prime of life, knocked at the stone-mason’s door. Kala opened it, and her father, recognizing the visitor, rose with wondering respect to greet him. It was Veit Stoss, the wood-carver, then at the zenith of his fame. With quick, keen eyes he glanced around the homely room, taking in every detail of the scene before him–Lisbeth weaving placidly by the fire; Kala fair and blushing in the lamp-light; and Sigmund playing idly with the crooked little turnspit at his feet. Then he turned to Peter, and for a minute the two men stood looking furtively at one another, as though each were trying to read his companion’s thoughts. Finally, the wood-carver spoke.

“I grieve, Master Burkgmaeier,” he said, with courteous sympathy, “that you should have lost your foster-son, to whom report says you were much attached. And I hear also that the young man promised highly in his calling.”

“Then you heard not all,” answered the stone-mason, slowly. “Gabriel did more, for he fulfilled his promise.”

A sudden light came into the artist’s eyes. “It is true, then,” he said, eagerly, “that the boy left behind him a rare piece of work, which has not yet been seen outside these walls. I heard the rumor, but thought it idle folly.”

Peter Burkgmaeier crossed the room and opened a deep cupboard. “You shall see it,” he said simply, “and answer for yourself. No one in Nuremberg is more fit to judge.” Then, lifting out something wrapped in a heavy cloth, he carried it to the table, unveiled it with a reverent hand, and, stepping back, waited in silence for a verdict.

There was a long, breathless pause, broken only by the low whir of Lisbeth’s busy wheel. Veit Stoss stood motionless, while Peter’s eyes never stirred from the table before them. There, carved in the fair white wood, rested the divine Babe, as on that blessed Christmas night when his Mother “wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a manger.” The lovely little head nestled on its rough pillow as though on Mary’s bosom; the tiny limbs were relaxed in sleep; the whole figure breathed at once the dignity of the Godhead and the pathetic helplessness of babyhood. Instinctively one loved, and pitied, and adored. Nor was this all. Every broken bit of straw that thrust its graceful, fuzzy head from between the rough bars of the manger, every twisted knot of grass, every gnarl and break in the wood itself, had been wrought with the tender accuracy of the true artist, who finds nothing too simple for his utmost care and skill.

Veit Stoss drew a heavy breath and turned to his companion. “It is a masterpiece,” he said, gravely, “which I should be proud to call my own. I congratulate you on the possession of so great a treasure.”

“It is not mine,” returned the artisan, “but my daughter’s. Gabriel wrought it for her wedding-gift.”

The wood-carver’s keen blue eyes scanned Kala’s pretty, stolid face, and then wandered to Sigmund’s broad shoulders and mighty bulk. A faint, derisive smile curled his well-cut lips. “Your daughter’s beauty merits, indeed, the rarest of all rare tokens,” he said, slowly. “But perhaps there are other things more needful to a young housewife than even this precious bit of carving. If she will part with it I will pay her seventy thalers, and it shall lie in St. Sebald’s Church near my own Virgin, that all may see its loveliness and remember the hand that fashioned it.”