tall linden trees half stripped of their leaves,
which, grave and solemn, seemed to be watching over a large church. It
seemed as though everybody was dead in this place; only a few children
were playing among the dry leaves, and an old woman limped into a sunny
corner, otherwise the deepest silence reigned.

A side door of the church stood open; he crossed over and entered into
the silent twilight of the sacred place; he took off his hat, and,
surprised by the noble simplicity of the building, he gazed at the
slender but lofty columns and the rich vaulting of the choir. Then he
walked down the middle aisle between the artistically carved stalls,
brown with age. He delighted in them, for he had the greatest
admiration for the beautiful forms of the Renaissance, and he was
doubly pleased, for he had not expected to find anything of the kind
here.

Here he suddenly stopped; there at the font, above which the white dove
soared with outspread wings, he saw three women. Two of them seemed to
be of the lower class; the elder, probably the midwife, held the child,
tossing it continually; the other, in a plain black woollen dress and
shawl, a young matron, looked at the child with eyes red with weeping;
a third had bent down towards her; the sexton, who was pouring the
water into the basin, concealed her completely for the moment and
Linden saw only the train of a dark silk dress on the stone floor.

And now a soft flexible woman's voice sounded in his ear: "Don't cry
so, my good Johanna, you will have a great deal of comfort yet with the
little thing--don't cry!

"Engleman, you had better call the clergyman--my sister does not seem
to come, she must have been detained; we will not wait any longer."

The speaker turned towards the mother, and Frank Linden looked full
into the face of the young girl. It was not exactly beautiful, this
fine oval, shaded by rich golden brown hair; the complexion was too
pale, the expression too sad, the corners of the mouth too much drawn
down, but under the finely pencilled brows a pair of deep blue eyes
looked out at him, clear as those of a child, wistful and appealing,
as if imploring peace for the sacred rite.

It might often happen that strangers entered the beautiful church and
made a disturbance--at least so Frank Linden interpreted the look.
Scarcely breathing, he leaned against one of the old stalls, and his
eyes followed every movement of the slender, girlish figure, as she
took