Marget and show friendliness for her, but
our parents were afraid of offending the community and wouldn't let
us. The astrologer was going around inflaming everybody against Father
Peter, and saying he was an abandoned thief and had stolen eleven
hundred and seven gold ducats from him. He said he knew he was a thief
from that fact, for it was exactly the sum he had lost and which Father
Peter pretended he had "found."

In the afternoon of the fourth day after the catastrophe old Ursula
appeared at our house and asked for some washing to do, and begged my
mother to keep this secret, to save Marget's pride, who would stop this
project if she found it out, yet Marget had not enough to eat and was
growing weak. Ursula was growing weak herself, and showed it; and she
ate of the food that was offered her like a starving person, but could
not be persuaded to carry any home, for Marget would not eat charity
food. She took some clothes down to the stream to wash them, but we saw
from the window that handling the bat was too much for her strength;
so she was called back and a trifle of money offered her, which she was
afraid to take lest Marget should suspect; then she took it, saying she
would explain that she found it in the road. To keep it from being a lie
and damning her soul, she got me to drop it while she watched; then she
went along by there and found it, and exclaimed with surprise and joy,
and picked it up and went her way. Like the rest of the village, she
could tell every-day lies fast enough and without taking any precautions
against fire and brimstone on their account; but this was a new kind of
lie, and it had a dangerous look because she hadn't had any practice in
it. After a week's practice it wouldn't have given her any trouble. It
is the way we are made.

I was in trouble, for how would Marget live? Ursula could not find a
coin in the road every day--perhaps not even a second one. And I was
ashamed, too, for not having been near Marget, and she so in need of
friends; but that was my parents' fault, not mine, and I couldn't help
it.

I was walking along the path, feeling very down-hearted, when a most
cheery and tingling freshening-up sensation went rippling through me,
and I was too glad for any words, for I knew by that sign that Satan was
by. I had noticed it before. Next moment he was alongside of me and I
was telling him all my trouble and what had been happening to Marget and
her uncle. While we were