ss none
had spoken so often or so loudly in her soul, so that her heart's deepest
yearning responded to what her friend had said.

"Then do its bidding," said my aunt eagerly, and I said the same; and
Ann, being not merely overruled but likewise convinced, yielded and
confessed that, even as Master Peter's wife, she could never have slain
the old love, and declared herself ready to renounce her pride and wrath.

Thus had my aunt's faithful love preserved her from sin, and gladly did I
consent to her brave spirit when she said to Ann: "You must save yourself
for that skittle-witted wight in Paris, child; for none other than he can
make you rightly happy, nor can he be happy with any other woman than my
true and faithful darling!"

Ann covered my aunt's hands with kisses, and the words flowed heartily
and glaaiy from her lips as she cried: "Yes, yes, yes! It is so! And if
he beat me and scorned me, if he fell so deep that no man would leap in
after him, I, I, would never let him sink."

And then Ann threw herself on my neck and said: "Oh, how light is my
heart once more. Ah, Margery! now, when I long to pray, I know well
enough what for."

My aunt's dim eyes had rarely shone so brightly as at this hour, and her
voice sounded clearer and firmer than it was wont when she once more
addressed us and said: "And now the old woman will finish up by telling
you a little tale for your guidance. You knew Riklein, the spinster, whom
folks called the night-spinster; and was not she a right loving and
cheerful soul? Yet had she known no small meed of sorrows. She died but
lately on Saint Damasius' day last past, and the tale I have to tell
concerns her. They called her the night-spinster, by reason that she
ofttimes would sit at her wheel till late into the night to earn money
which she was paid at the rate of three farthings the spool. But it was
not out of greed that the old body was so keen to get money.

"In her youth she had been one of the neatest maids far and wide, and had
set her heart on a charcoal burner who was a sorry knave indeed, a
sheep-stealer and a rogue, who came to a bad end on the rack. But for all
that Riklein never ceased to love him truly and, albeit he was dead and
gone, she did not give over toiling diligently while she lived yet for
him. The priest had told her that, inasmuch as her lover had taken the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the scaffold, the Kingdom of Heaven was
not closed to him, yet woul