o
what persons or charitable institutions it should be sent, and listened
to her account of the facts that formed the foundation of the slanders
against her, which were being more loudly and universally discussed
throughout the city.

Eva felt painfully how incapable of rendering assistance the others
considered her, and her pride forbade her to urge it upon them. Even her
Aunt Kunigunde scarcely asked her a question. It seemed to the abbess
that the right hour for a decisive enquiry had not yet come, and wise
Aunt Christine never talked with her younger niece upon religious
subjects unless she herself requested her to do so.

The mass for the dead was to be celebrated at an unusually early hour,
for another, which would be attended by the whole city and all
the distinguished persons, knights, and nobles who had come to the
Reichstag, was to begin four hours before noon. This was for Prince
Hartmann, who had been snatched away so prematurely.

The Ortliebs, with all their kindred and servants, the members of the
Council with their wives and daughters, and many burghers and burgher
women, assembled soon after sunrise in St. Sebald's Church.

Those present were almost lost in the spacious, lofty interior with its
three naves. At first there was little appearance of devotion, for the
early arrivals had many things to ask and whisper to one another. The
city architect lowered his loud voice very little as he discussed with
a brother in the craft from Cologne in what way the house of God, which
originally had been built in the Byzantine style, could be at least
partly adapted to the French pointed arch which was used with such
remarkable success in Germany, at Cologne and Marburg. They discussed
the eastern choir, which needed complete rebuilding, the missing
steeples, and the effect of the pointed arch which harmonised so
admirably with the German cast of character, and did not cease until the
music began. Now the great number of those present showed how much love
the dead woman had sowed and reaped. The sisters, when they first looked
around them, saw with grateful joy the father of the young man who had
fallen in the duel with Wolff, old Herr Berthold Vorchtel, his wife,
and Ursula. On the other hand, the pew adorned with the Eysvogel coat of
arms was still empty. This wounded Els deeply; but she uttered a sigh
of relief when--the introitus had just begun--at least one member of the
haughty family to which she felt al