as a most troublesome chatterbox and spy, the inquiry ended. And
with somewhat more friendliness, putting the best face on a bad
matter, they accepted Sidonia for their sub-prioress.




CHAPTER V.

How Sidonia wounds Ambrosia von Guntersberg with an axe,
because she purposed to marry--And prays the convent porter,
Matthias Winterfeld, to death--For these, and other causes, the
reverend chaplain refuses to shrive the sorceress, and denounces
her publicly from the altar.


Sidonia's first act, as may easily be imagined, was to dismiss the
priest; and for this purpose she wrote him a letter, saying that
he must never more presume to set foot within the cloister, for if
old ice-grey mothers were not safe from him, how could she and the
other maidens hope to escape? If he disobeyed her orders, she
would summon him before the princely consistorium, where strange
things might be told of him.

So the reverend David consented right willingly, and never saw the
nuns except on Sundays in the chapel, but Sidonia herself never
appeared in the nuns' choir. She gave Dorothea many excellent and
convincing reasons for her absence. (But in my opinion, it was
caused by hate and abhorrence of the sacrament and the holy Word
of God; for such are a torment and a torture to the children of