Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/301

284 "I am more grieved than angry, because I trusted my son to you,"—and he gave himself no rest until, after long perseverance in well-doing, he one day heard her say,—"Dolf, I can trust you again."

Ten years passed by, and Conrad was Duke. His father had fallen in battle, his gentle mother had died not long after, and the lad of nineteen was lord of castle and lands.

Father Johann yet lived, but he was now very feeble. And Dolf was there—still bold and daring, but not so rash as of old.

A true and faithful servant he had proved, and the young Duke loved him. But Conrad was the same as he had ever been; and a new pleasure could absorb him now as it had at nine years—a new friend influence him now as then.

It had fallen that, on a certain summer's day, a young minstrel, or "minnesinger,"