doctor could do nothing else, he may go his ways.

Now the doctor grew angry. Such a cursed fool of a woman he had
never come across in his life; if she did not strip her arm
instantly, he would do it by force. But Dorothea is inflexible;
say what he would, she would strip her arm for no man!

Even the abbess and the sisterhood tried to persuade her.

"Would she not do it for her health's sake; or, at least, for the
sake of peace?"

They were all here standing round her, but all in vain. At last
the doctor, half-laughing, half-cursing, said--

"He would bleed her in the foot. Would that do?"

"Yes, she would consent to that; but the doctor must leave the
room while she was getting ready."

So my doctor went out, but on entering again found her sitting on
the bed, dressed in her full convent robes, her head upon Anna
Apenborg's shoulder, and her foot upon a stool. As the foot,
however, was covered with a stocking, the doctor began to scold.

"What was the stocking for? Let him take off the stocking. Was she
making a fool of him? He advised her not to try it."

"No," Dorothea answered, "never would she strip her foot for him.
Die she would if die she must, but that she could never do! If he