pray them to life again. Shall she try it with the porter?"

Ille.--"Why then had she threatened it?"

Haec (still laughing).--"Ah! poor man! she saw now he was
quite foolish. Why had she threatened? Why, in anger, of course,
because the vile churl had flung her against the wall. Had he
never heard the poor people say to each other, 'May the devil take
you;' but if one happened to die soon after, did people really
think the devil had taken him? Why, he was as superstitious as an
old spinning-wife."

Ille.--"She had heard his resolve. This was no place to
argue with her; therefore she might go her ways, for he would
verily not give her absolution."

So Sidonia rose up raging from the confessional, clenched her
hand, and screamed out in the still church, so that all the people
shuddered with horror--"Ye are all my witnesses that this
worthless priest has denied me absolution, because, forsooth, he
says I killed the convent porter. Ha! ha! ha! Where is it said in
your Scriptures that one man can pray another to death? But the
licentiousness of the vile priest has turned his brain, and he
wallows in all most senseless superstitions. Did he not run after
my old hag of a servant, as I myself saw; and this was not enough,
but he must take Dorothea Stettin (the hypocritical wanton) behind
the altar alone; and because I and these seven maidens discovered
his iniquity, he refuses me the rites, and must have me before a
princely consistorium to revenge himself. But wait, priest, I will
drag the sheep's clothing from thee. Wait, thou shalt yet repent