the world and make him a champion of the holy cause of the Church of
Christ, the victorious conqueror of her foes. Sky-blue, the Holy
Virgin's colour, should be hers, and thus his also, and every victory
gained by the knight with the sky-blue on his helmet, under St. Clare's
protection, would then be hers.

Heinz Schorlin was already one of the boldest and strongest knights; her
love must render him also one of the most godly. Yes, her love! If St.
Francis had not disdained to make a wolf his brother, why might she not
feel herself the loving sister of a youth who would obey her as a noble
falcon did his mistress, and whom she would teach to pursue the right
quarry? The abbess would not forbid such love, and the impulse that drew
her so strongly to the convent was the longing to know how her aunt would
receive her confession.

The night before when, after her conversation with Els, she began to
pray, she had feared that she had fallen into the snare of earthly love,
and dreaded the confession which she had to make to her aunt Kunigunde.
Now she found that it was no fleshly bond which united her to the knight.
Oh, no! As St. Francis had gone forth to console, to win souls for the
Lord, to bring peace and exhort to earnest labour in the service of the
Saviour, as his disciples had imitated him, and St. Clare had been
untiring in working, in his spirit, among women, she, too, would obey the
call which had come to her saint in Portiuncula, and prove herself for
the first time, according to the Scripture, "a fisher of souls."

Now she gladly anticipated the meeting; for though her sister did not
understand her, the abbess must know how to sympathise with what was
passing in her mind. This expectation was fulfilled; for as soon as she
was alone with her aunt she poured forth all her hopes and feelings