Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/202

 to the pecuniary interests of his ward as conscientiously as he did to those of his own church, accepting no other recompense for his services than a surplice, which, however, Lisa had made so fine that an archbishop would not have disdained to wear it.

The excellent mother enjoyed unmixed satisfaction equally from the conduct and from the prosperity of her children. Rubezahl’s favourite became a brave officer, and served many years in the thirty years’ war, under Wallenstein, with the highest reputation and honour. 

FTER the time when Lisa was so richly dowered by the Gnome, a long period elapsed without his being again heard of. The gossips, indeed, at their spinning parties, diverted the long winter evenings by relating all sorts of marvellous tales about him, each adding, at fancy, new incidents to her own edition of the story; but mere stories they were, and nothing more, altogether destitute of authority; in a hundred tales, scarcely one particle of truth. The Countess Cecilia, a cotem-