fresh air even during rainy weather. It overlooked the herb garden,
which was specially dear to its mistress, for it contained roses, lilies,
pinks, and other flowers; and part of the beds, after being dug by the
gardener, who had charge of the kitchen garden in the rear, were planted
and tended by her own hand.

The hour between sunrise and mass was devoted to this work, in which Eva
was to help her, and it would afford her much information; for her aunt
raised many plants which possessed healing power. Some of the seeds or
bulbs had been brought from foreign lands, but she was perfectly familiar
with the virtues of all. Schweinau afforded abundant opportunity to use
them, and the nurses in the city hospital, and the leech Otto, and other
physicians, as well as many noble dames in the neighbourhood who took the
place of a physician among their peasants and dependents, applied to Fran
Christine when they needed certain roots, leaves, berries, and seeds for
their sick. Nor did the monks and nuns, far and near, ever come to her
for such things in vain.

True, the life at Castle Schweinau was by no means so quiet as the one
which Eva had hitherto loved.

When she accepted the invitation she knew that, if she shared all her
aunt's occupations, she would not have even a single half hour of her
own; but this was not her first visit here, and she had learned that Frau
Christine allowed her entire liberty, and required nothing which she did
not offer of her own free will.

When she saw the matron, after the mass and the early repast which her
husband shared with her before going to the city, visit the aged widows
of the crusaders in the little institution behind the kitchen garden and