e not
feel herself the loving sister of a youth who would obey her as a noble
falcon did his mistress, and whom she would teach to pursue the right
quarry? The abbess would not forbid such love, and the impulse that
drew her so strongly to the convent was the longing to know how her aunt
would receive her confession.

The night before when, after her conversation with Els, she began to
pray, she had feared that she had fallen into the snare of earthly love,
and dreaded the confession which she had to make to her aunt Kunigunde.
Now she found that it was no fleshly bond which united her to the
knight. Oh, no! As St. Francis had gone forth to console, to win souls
for the Lord, to bring peace and exhort to earnest labour in the service
of the Saviour, as his disciples had imitated him, and St. Clare had
been untiring in working, in his spirit, among women, she, too, would
obey the call which had come to her saint in Portiuncula, and prove
herself for the first time, according to the Scripture, "a fisher of
souls."

Now she gladly anticipated the meeting; for though her sister did not
understand her, the abbess must know how to sympathise with what was
passing in her mind. This expectation was fulfilled; for as soon as
she was alone with her aunt she poured forth all her hopes and feelings
without reserve, eagerly and joyfully extolling her good fortune that,
through St. Clare, she had been enabled to find the noblest and most
valiant knight, that she might win him for the Holy War under her
saint's protection and to her honour.

The abbess, who knew women's hearts, had at first felt the same fear
as Els; but she soon changed her opinion, and thought that she might be
permitted to rejoice over the new emotion in her darling's breast.

No girl in love talked so openly and joyously of the conquest won, least
of all would her truthful, excitable niece, whom she had drawn into her
own path, speak thus of the man who disturbed her repose. No sensitive
girl, unfamiliar with the world and scarcely beyond childhood, would
decide with such steadfast firmness, so wholly free from every selfish
wish, the future of the man dearest to her heart. No, no! Eva had
already attained her new birth, and was not to be compared with other
girls She had already once reached that ecstatic rapture which followed
only a long absorption in God and an active sympathy with the deep human
love of the Saviour and the unspeakable sufferings which he