d awake, though she had lowered her lids, and it wandered
restlessly over valleys rivers, and mountains through the wide, wide
world. She saw herself in imagination travelling along the highway with
nimble jugglers merry musicians, and other care-free vagrant folk,
instead of plying the needle. Even the whirling dust, the rushing wind,
and the refreshing rain outside seemed desirable compared with the heavy
convent air impregnated by a perpetual odour of lavender.

When at last, in the month of March, little Afra, the fair-haired niece
of the portress, brought her the first snowdrop, and Kuni saw a pair of
starlings enter the box on the budding linden before her window, she
could no longer bear her imprisonment in the convent.

Within these walls she must fade, perhaps die and return to dust. In
spite of all the warnings, representations, entreaties, and promises of
those who--she gratefully perceived it--meant well toward her, she
persisted in her desire to be dismissed, to live out of doors as she had
always done. At last they paid her what was due, but she accepted only
the Emperor's bounty, proudly refusing Lienhard Groland's money,
earnestly as she was urged to add it to the other and to the viaticum
bestowed by the nuns.

CHAPTER VII.

The April sun was shining brightly when the convent gates closed behind
Kuni. The lindens in the square were already putting forth young leaves,
the birds were singing, and her heart swelled more joyously than it had
done for many years.

True, the cough which had tormented her all winter attacked her in the
shady cloister, but she had learned to use her wooden foot, and with a
cane in one hand and her little bundle in the other she moved sturdily
on. After making her pilgrimage to Compostella, she intended to seek her
old employer, Loni. Perhaps he could give her a place as crier, or if the
cough prevented that, in collecting the money or training the children.
He was a kind-hearted man. If he were even tolerably prosperous he would
certainly let her travel with the band, and give the girl who was injured
in his service the bit of food she required. Besides, in former days,
when she scattered gold with lavish hands, he had predicted what had now
befallen her, and when he left Augsburg he had asked the nuns to tell her
that if she should ever be in want she must remember Loni.

With the Emperor's five heller pounds, and the two florins which she had
received as a viaticu