onal exercises, the
forehead pressed upon the open prayer-book, the little hands busied
with the beads of their rosaries. But they could hardly have had time
to repeat a paternoster before the places at their side were occupied
by two voluntary participants in their worship. On the footstool to the
right, next the startled Fanny, knelt Elfinger, while Rosenbusch had
sunk gently down on the stool on the other side, close to his more
worldly sweetheart, who appeared not to take the slightest notice of
him. The muttering, wheezing, snuff-taking old hags, who sat about here
and there, evidently took no offense at this symmetrical group, which
quietly busied itself with its own affairs; and only a round, red-faced
little priest, who was kneeling before his own taper and reading out of
a book, with his spectacles shoved high up on his forehead, seemed to
be suddenly disturbed in his perusal. The spectacles quickly slipped
down upon his nose, and his little eyes strove earnestly to pierce the
dim light that played about the two red columns.

"Are you really in earnest?" whispered Elfinger, bending down close to
the ear of his neighbor. "You really want to turn your back upon this
beautiful world and bury yourself in a convent? You, so young, so
charming, so well fitted to be happy and to make others happy."

A deep sigh was the only response he received. At the same time she
almost imperceptibly hitched her stool about half an inch farther away
from the speaker, and buried her delicate little nose still deeper in
her prayer-book.

"Fraeulein Fanny," he whispered, after a pause, "what horrible thing
have you seen or experienced in the world that has made you already
weary of it? Or does the air here in this house of prayer seem to you
easier to breathe than the lovely air of heaven outside? And do you
think you will find a convent better ventilated than this place, and
filled with a better company?"

"_Ave Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora_--" murmured the girl,
making the sign of the cross.

"And do you think I will be put off in this way?" whispered Rosenbusch
to his neighbor. "Oh, my adored Fanny, you do not know me! If painting
battles does not exactly make a man fat, it makes him strong, bold as a
lion, invincible. You shall see what heroic deeds I will yet
accomplish--on condition, of course, that you remain faithful and true
to me. Or do you doubt me?"

She was silent for a moment. A quick, mischievous side-gl