was taught by her, no one at any time made so bold as to speak during
lessons or venture on any pastime.

At last, in a few minutes for rest, I asked Ursula Tetzel, who had come
to the convent school for a year past. She put out her red nether-lip
with a look of scorn and said the new scholar had been thrust among us
but did not belong to the like of us. Sister Margaret, though of a noble
house herself, had forgot what was due to us and our families, and had
taken in this grey bat out of pity. Her father was a simple clerk in the
Chancery office and was accountant to the convent for some small wage.
His name was Veit Spiesz, and she had heard her father say that the
scribe was the son of a simple lute-player and could hardly earn enough
to live. He had formerly served in a merchant's house at Venice. There he
had wed an Italian woman, and all his children, which were many, had,
like her, hair and eyes as black as the devil. For the sake of a "God
repay thee!" this maid, named Ann, had been brought to mix with us
daughters of noble houses. "But we will harry her out," said Ursula, "you
will see!"

This shocked me sorely, and I said that would be cruel and I would have
no part in such a matter; but Ursula laughed and said I was yet but a
green thing, and turned away to the window-shelf where all the new-comers
had laid out their sweetmeats at the behest of the eldest or first of the
class; for, by old custom, all the sweetmeats brought by the novices on
the first day were in common.

All the party crowded round the heap of sweetmeats, which waxed greater
and greater, and I was standing among the others when I saw that the
scribe's daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her
head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to
her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her
hand--for I had it still hidden in my poke--and, whispered to her: "I had
two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on the heap."

She gave me a questioning look with her great eyes, and when she saw that
I meant it truly she nodded, and there was something in her tearful look
which I never can forget; and I mind, too, that when I passed the little
packet into her hand it seemed that I, and not she, had received the
favor.

She gave the sweetmeats she had taken from me to the eldest, and spoke
not a word, and did not seem to mark that they all mocked at the
smallness of the pac