stop this horrible begging. This happened the Saturday before
Whitsuntide, and as she had gone out hoping this time to bring something
back, she had promised the children food enough to satisfy their hunger.
They should have some Whitsuntide cakes, too, as they did years ago.
When she reached the house and little Walpurga--you'll see her presently,
a pretty child six years old--ran to meet her, asking for the cakes and
the bread to satisfy her hunger, while Annelein, who is somewhat older,
but less bright and active, did the same, she felt as if she should die,
and carrying the baby, which she had held in her arms while begging at
the church door, back into the room, she told Walpurga to watch it, as
she had long been in the habit of doing, until she came back with the
bread.

"For the children's sake she would try begging once more, but she could
not go to St. Sebald's.

"So she went from house to house, asking alms; but she was a well-formed
woman, who did not show her serious illness. She kept herself tidy,
too, and looked better in her poor rags than many who were better off.
Had she carried her nursing infant, perhaps she might have succeeded
better, but even the most compassionate housewives either turned her from
their doors or offered her work at the wash-tub, or in cleaning or
gardening. The weakness from which she had suffered since the birth of
her child made stooping so painful that she could not do what they
required.

"When she was at last obliged to turn homeward, because the baby had
probably been screaming for her a long time, she had only one small
copper coin, with which she went to the baker Kilian's, in the
Stopfelgasse, to ask for a penny's worth of bread. The baker's wife was