"If," replied the matron in a tone of the firmest conviction, "they had
not all been far from believing, even for a moment, in their inmost souls
the shameful calumny which baseness dared to cast upon those two--just
look more closely."

"Yet if that was really the case--" her husband began to object, but she
eagerly continued: "Many did not utter their better knowledge or faith
because the evil heart believes in wickedness rather than virtue,
especially if their own house contains something--we will say a young
daughter--whose shining purity is thereby brought into a clearer light.
Besides, we ourselves have often been vexed by--let us do honour to the
truth!--by the defiant manner in which your devout godchild--yonder
'little saint'--held aloof in her spiritual arrogance from the companions
of her own age----"

"And then," the corpulent husband added, "two young girls cannot be
called 'the beautiful Es' unpunished in houses which contain a less
comely T, S, and H. Just think of the Katerpecks. There--thank the
saints!--they are taking leave already."

"Don't say anything about them!" said Frau Christine, shaking her finger
threateningly. "They are good, well-behaved children. It was pretty
Ermengarde Muffel yonder by the fireplace who, after the dance at the
Town Hall, assailed your godchild most spitefully with her sharp tongue.
My friend Frau Nutzel heard her."

"Ah, that dance!" said the magistrate, sighing faintly. "But the child
was certainly distinguished in no common way. The Emperor Rudolph himself
looked after her as if an angel had appeared to him. You yourself heard
his sister's opinion of her. Her husband, the old Burgrave, and his son,
handsome Eitelfritz--But you know all that. Half would have been enough
to stir ill-will in many a heart."

"And to turn her pretty little head completely," added his wife.

"That, by our Lady, Christine," protested the magistrate, "that, at
least, did not happen. It ran off from her like water from an oil jar. I
noticed it myself, and the abbess--"

"Your sister," interrupted the matron thoughtfully, "she was the very one
who led her into the path that is not suited for her."

"No, no," the magistrate eagerly asserted. "God did not create a girl,
the mere sight of whom charms so many, to withdraw her from the gaze of
the world."

"Husband! husband!" exclaimed Frau Christine, tapping his arm gaily. "But
there go the Schurstabs and Ebners. What a noise there is