without reserve, eagerly and joyfully extolling her good fortune that,
through St. Clare, she had been enabled to find the noblest and most
valiant knight, that she might win him for the Holy War under her saint's
protection and to her honour.

The abbess, who knew women's hearts, had at first felt the same fear as
Els; but she soon changed her opinion, and thought that she might be
permitted to rejoice over the new emotion in her darling's breast.

No girl in love talked so openly and joyously of the conquest won, least
of all would her truthful, excitable niece, whom she had drawn into her
own path, speak thus of the man who disturbed her repose. No sensitive
girl, unfamiliar with the world and scarcely beyond childhood, would
decide with such steadfast firmness, so wholly free from every selfish
wish, the future of the man dearest to her heart. No, no! Eva had
already attained her new birth, and was not to be compared with other
girls She had already once reached that ecstatic rapture which followed
only a long absorption in God and an active sympathy with the deep human
love of the Saviour and the unspeakable sufferings which he had taken
upon himself. Little was to be feared from earthly love for one who
devoted herself with all the passion of her fervid nature to the divine
Bridegroom. Among the many whom Kunigunde received into the convent as
novices, she was most certainly "called." If she felt something which
resembled love for the young knight--and she made no concealment of it--
it was only the result of the sweet joy of winning for the Lord, the
faith, and her saint a soul which seemed to her worthy of such grace.

Dear, highly gifted child!

She, the abbess Kunigunde, was willing it should be so, and that Eva