of their beautiful wives and daughters at the entertainment in the Town
Hall.

Herr Ortlieb's invalid wife could not spare Els, her older daughter and
faithful nurse, so he required Eva's obedience, and compelled her to give
up her opposition to attending the festival; but she dreaded the vain,
worldly gaiety--nay, actually felt a horror of it.

Even while still a pupil at the convent school she had often asked
herself whether it would not be the fairest fate for her, like her Aunt
Kunigunde, the abbess of the convent of St. Clare, to vow herself to the
Saviour and give up perishable joys to secure the rapture of heaven,
which lasted throughout eternity, and might begin even here on earth, in
a quiet life with God, a complete realisation of the Saviour's loving
nature, and the great sufferings which he took upon himself for love's
sake. Oh, even suffering and bleeding with the Most High were rich in
mysterious delight! Aye, no earthly happiness could compare with the
blissful feeling left by those hours of pious ecstasy.

Often she had sat with closed eyes for a long time, dreaming that she was
in the kingdom of heaven and, herself an angel, dwelt with angels. How
often she had wondered whether earthly love could bestow greater joy than
such a happy dream, or the walks through the garden and forest, during
which the abbess told her of St. Francis of Assisi, who founded her
order, the best and most warmhearted among the successors of Christ, of
whom the Pope himself said that he would hear even those whom God would
not! Moreover, there was no plant, no flower, no cry of any animal in
the woods which was not familiar to the Abbess Kunigunde. Like St.
Francis; she distinguished in everything which the ear heard and the eye
beheld voices that bore witness to the goodness and greatness of the Most