gossip about brides and weddings, forsooth, and such-like improper
thoughts. Neither should they go to the annual fair. She would go
herself and buy everything for them she thought needful, only let
them give her the gold.

And out of deadly fear the poor maidens bore this tyranny long
while silently; even the abbess feared to complain, so that
Sidonia soon usurped the entire government of the convent.

But the powder-mill broke out at last into vivid flames, as I
shall narrate here. It was on this wise:--Amongst the novices was
one beautiful young maiden, Ambrosia von Guntersberg by name. She
was fifth daughter of old Ambrosius of Falkenwald, a little town
near Jacobshagen. One day a young nobleman called Ewald von
Mellenthin beheld her in her cloister habit. Think you he forgot
her? No, he can never forget the maiden! One, two weeks pass over,
but she has sunk deeper and deeper into his heart; at last he rose
up and went to Falkenwald to her father, Ambrosius, asking her
hand in honourable marriage.

Now, the old man was well pleased, for he was poor, and had five
daughters; so he bid the young noble write a letter to his
daughter Ambrosia, which he would inclose in one from himself to
her. But no answer arrived from the maiden (we may guess why, for
Sidonia opened and read all the letters that came to the convent,
before they were handed to their owners. Those that displeased her
she burned; no doubt, therefore, the love-letter was the first in
the flames). But the young noble grew impatient for an answer, and
resolved to ride to Marienfliess. So he ties his good horse to a
cross in the churchyard, walks straight up to the convent, and