noon
The next morning Master Jamnitzer called the valuable star his own , and pledged himself to keep the matter secret , and to obtain from the Fuggers a bill of exchange upon Paris for ten thousand lire . The honest man sent her through the Haller banking house a thousand ducats , that he might not be open to the reproach of having defrauded her . Yet the gold which she did not need for the marquise seemed to Barbara like money unjustly obtained . While she was riding out at noon , Frau Lerch found it in her chest , and thought that she now knew what had made the girl so happy the day before . She was all the more indignant when , soon after , Barbara gave half the new wealth to the Prebrunn town clerk to distribute among the poor journeymen potters whose huts had been burned down the previous night . The rest she kept to give to the relatives of her one-eyed maid-servant at home , who were in the direst poverty . For the first time she had felt the pleasure of interposing , like a higher power , in the destiny of others .