not there, and her spinster sister-in-law, an elderly, ill-natured woman,
was serving the customers in her place.

"As she turned to cut the bit of bread, and all sorts of nice sweet cakes
lay on the shining counters before poor Riecklein, the children seemed to
stand before her, headed by Walpurga, asking for the cakes and the bread
she had promised them to eat their fill; and as no one was passing in the
quiet street, Satan stirred within her for the first time, and a sweet
jumble slid into the little basket on her arm. Had she stopped there she
might have escaped unpunished; but there were two hungry little beaks
agape in the nest, and she saw a pretty lamb with a little red flag on
its back. If Walpurga could only have it! And with the clumsiness due
to her inexperience in such matters she seized that, too, and put it with
the other.

"Meanwhile the sister-in-law had turned, and instead of enquiring at a
time so near the holy feast what had induced her to commit such a crime,
she shrieked, "Stop thief!" and similar cries.

"So the widow was taken to the Hole, and as she had hitherto borne an
unsullied reputation and was the child of a good man, justice allowed
itself to be satisfied with having her scourged with rods privately
instead of in public. So she came here. But as her poor body was too
fragile to withstand all the trouble which had come upon her, she had a
violent attack of fever, and a few hours ago death stretched its hand
towards her."

"And the children?" asked Frau Christine, deeply moved.

"She was allowed to have the baby," answered Sister Hildegard, "but she