had not thought of it before,
because it had been as much a part of herself as her eyes or her lips,
and it would have seemed utterly impossible to part with it. This article
was a tolerably heavy gold ring, with a sparkling ruby in the centre. She
had drawn it from her father's finger after he had taken his last leap
and she was called to his corpse. She did not even know whether he had
received the circlet as a wedding ring from the mother of whom she had no
remembrance, or where he obtained it. But she had heard that it was of
considerable value, and when she set off to sell the jewel, she did not
find it very hard to gave it up. It seemed as if her father, from the
grave, was providing his poor child with the means she needed to continue
to support her life.

She had heard in the convent of Graslin, the goldsmith, who had bestowed
on the chapel a silver shrine for the relics, and went to him.

When she stood before the handsome gableroofed house which he occupied
she shrank back a little. At first he received her sternly and
repellantly enough, but, as soon as she introduced herself as the
ropedancer who had met with the accident, he showed himself to be a
kindly old gentleman.

After one of the city soldiers had said that she told the truth and had
just been dismissed from the convent, he paid her the full value of the
ring and added a florin out of sympathy and the admiration he felt for
the charm which still dwelt in her sparkling blue eyes.

But Compostella was indeed far away. Her new supply of money was
sufficient for the journey there, but how could she return? Besides, her
cough troubled her very seriously, and it seemed as though she could not
travel that long distance alone. The dealer in indulgences had said that
the paper made the pilgrimage unnecessary, and the confessor in the
convent had only commanded her to go to Altotting. With this neighbouring
goal before her, she turned her back upon Augsburg the following morning.

Her hope of meeting on the way compassionate people, who would give her a
seat in their vehicles, was fulfilled. She reached Altotting sooner than
she had expected. During the journey, sometimes in a peasant's cart,
sometimes in a freight wagon, she had thought often of little Juliane,
and always with a quiet, nay, a contented heart. In the famous old
church, at the end of her pilgrimage, she saw a picture in which the
raked souls of children were soaring upward to heaven from t