hioning!"

And with more of such commendatory observations, interspersed now and
then with a few gentle criticisms, which showed the connoisseur as well
as the gratified admirer, he took up and examined the various designs
dispersed upon the table. When his curiosity seemed fully satisfied, he
again turned to Magdalena.

"I must away," he said; "for I have still many arduous and painful
duties to perform, and my time is limited. I rely upon thy strict
secrecy, Magdalena. I would not it should be known that I was here. And
remember, in three days at Saint Bridget's convent!"

With these words he stretched forth his hand. She again knelt, and
kissed it devoutly; and pulling his black robe and cowl more closely
about his face and person, the monk disappeared by the concealed door.

Magdalena still knelt, overcome by her various emotions, when a sound
from the window looking into the river startled her, and caused her to
turn round. An involuntary scream burst from her lips; for from among
the branches of a tree that grew upon the river's banks, and overhung
the window, peered, through the dingy panes, the pale face of the
witchfinder.

It was about the hour of vespers; and an unusually dense crowd of the
town's people of Hammelburg, of all ages, ranks, and sexes, swarmed in
the small open space before the fine old Gothic church of the town, and
stood in many a checkered group--here, of fat thriving _bourgeois_ and
their portly wives, dragging in their hands chubby and rebellious little
urchins, who looked all but spherical in their monstrous puffed hose or
short wadded multifold petticoats, the miniature reproductions of the
paternal and maternal monstrosities of attire--there, of more noisy and
clamorous artizans, in humbler and less preposterous dress--on the one
side, of chattering serving-damsels, almost crushed under their high
pyramidical black caps, worn in imitation of an ancient fashion of their
betters--on the other, of grave counsellors and _schreibers_ in their
black costumes, interlarding their pompous phrases with most canine
Latin--here again, of the plumed and checkered soldiers of the civic
guard--there, of ragged-robed beggars, whose whine had become a second
nature--all in a constant ferment of movement and noise, until the
square might be fancied to look like the living and crawling mass of an
old worm-eaten cheese.

The congregation of the multitude had been induced by a report prevalent
through