om the wreck of her fortune of ten thousand florins she
received only a paltry hundred or two, and so deeply did she feel the
loss of her money that she openly declared her wish to die. The result
of the continual worrying induced a fever which never left her. When
her husband wished to send for a physician she would not consent to it,
and when, in spite of her objections, he at last sent for one, his wife
in a passion threw the medicine he prescribed out of the window.

At last her husband saw that she was seriously ill, and he requested
the minister of Erlenbrunn to come and see her. The good old man
visited her frequently and talked to her affectionately, in order to
induce her to repent of her sins, and to detach her heart from the
things of this earth, that she might turn to God.

But this advice made her very angry. She looked at the good man with
utter astonishment. "I do not know," she said, "for what purpose the
minister comes to preach repentance to me. He should have delivered
such a sermon to the merchant who stole our money. Yes, there would
have been some sense in that. As for me, I do not see that I have any
reason for repentance. As long as I was able to go out I always went to
church, and I have never failed to say my prayers. I have not ceased
all my life to do my duty and to behave myself like a virtuous
housewife. I defy any living soul to slander me. And of all the poor
people who have come to my door, not one can complain that I sent them
away without giving them something. Now, I should like to know how any
one can behave better!"

The venerable pastor saw that she was justifying herself before God,
and he tried by adopting a more direct tone to lead her to contrition.
He showed to her that she loved money more than anything else in the
world, and that the love of money was idolatry. He showed her that the
bursts of anger in which she had indulged were heinous sins before God,
that she had totally failed in the most beautiful of all Christian
virtues--filial affection; that by her greed of money she had made her
husband unhappy, cruelly driven away the poor orphan Mary, and even
turned away her husband's parents, those whom she ought to have
cherished as if they were her own.

He showed her also that, with a fortune like hers, a little piece of
bread given to a poor man to get rid of him did not fulfil the duties
which God expected of her, that in spite of all her boasting of going
to church s