s forced to confide
to the street. Endres closed the heavy door of the house behind her with
a strength and celerity marvellous in a man of his years.

Ortel was terribly agitated. Soon after his mother's departure he went
with his sister to the woodhouse, where both wept bitterly; for Metz had
given her heart to a young carrier who was expected to return from a trip
to Frankfort the first of July, and would rather have thrown herself into
the Pegnitz than married the rich old tailor to whom she knew her mother
had promised her pretty daughter; whilst her brother, like many youths of
his station, thought that the place of driver of a six-horse wain was the
most delightful calling in the world, and both were warmly attached to
their employer and the family whom they served. And yet both felt that it
was a heavy sin to refuse to obey their mother.

CHAPTER VII.

Eva was spared witnessing the close of this unpleasant incident. The
abbess had led her up the stairs into the sitting-room. St. Clare
herself, she thought, had sent Fran Vorkler to render the choice she
intended to place before her niece that very day easier for Eva.

Even whilst ascending the broad steps she put her arm around her, but in
the apartment, whence the noonday sun had been shut out and they were
greeted with a cool atmosphere perfumed with the fragrance of the
bouquets of roses and mignonette which Eva and the gardener had set in
jars on the mantelpiece early in the morning, the abbess drew her darling
closer to her side, saying, "The world is again showing you its most
disagreeable face, my poor child, ere you bid it farewell."

She kissed her brow and eyes tenderly as she spoke, expecting Eva, as she
had often done when anything troubled her young soul, to return the
caress impulsively, and accept with grateful impetuosity the invitation
to the shelter which she offered; but the vile assault of the coarse
woman who brought to her knowledge what people were thinking and saying
about her produced upon the strange child, who had already given her many
a surprise, an effect precisely opposite to her expectations. No, Eva had
by no means forgotten the pain inflicted by Frau Vorkler's base
accusations; but if whilst in the sedan-chair she had feared that she
should lack courage to inflict upon her beloved aunt and friend so great
a disappointment, she now felt that this dread had been needless, and
that her offended maidenly pride absolved her