seeing the girl, little
dreaming of the frivolous mission she would propose, he waved his hand
to her, and she responded gracefully with a similar gesture.

Indeed, however strongly the monk might disapprove, there was much to be
said in favor of the resolution to which the young lady had come. She
was well educated, probably the richest heiress in Germany, and
carefully as the pious Sisters of Nonnenwerth Convent may have concealed
the fact from her, she was extremely beautiful, and knew it, and
although the valley of the Saynbach was a very haven of peace and
prosperity, the girl became just a trifle lonely, and yearned to know
something of life and the Court in Frankfort, to which her high rank
certainly entitled her.

It is true that very disquieting rumors had reached her concerning the
condition of things in the capital city; nevertheless she determined to
learn from an authoritative source whether or not it was safe to take up
a temporary residence in Frankfort, and for this purpose the reluctant
Father Ambrose would journey southward.

Father Ambrose was more than sixty years old, and if he had belonged to
the world, instead of to religion, would have been entitled to the name
Henry von Sayn. His presence in the Benedictine Order was proof of the
fact that money will not accomplish everything. His famous, or perhaps
we should say infamous, ancestor, Count Henry III. of Sayn, who died in
1246, was a robber and a murderer, justly esteemed the terror of the
Rhine. Concealed as it was in the Sayn valley, half a league from the
great river, the situation of his stronghold favored his depredations.
He filled his warehousing rooms with merchandise from barges going down
the river, and with gold seized from unhappy merchants on their way up.
He thought no more of cutting a throat than of cutting a purse, and it
was only when he became amazingly wealthy that the increase of years
brought trouble to a conscience which all men thought had ceased to
exist. Thereupon, for the welfare of his soul, he built the Abbey of
Sayn, and provided for the monks therein. Yet, when he came to die, he
entertained fearsome, but admittedly well-founded doubts regarding his
future state, so he proceeded to sanctify a treasure no longer of any
use to him, by bequeathing it to the Church, driving, however, a bargain
by which he received assurance that his body should rest quietly in the
tomb he had prepared for himself within the Abbey wall