hich sufficiently expressed her grateful
appreciation, but to-day she seemed like a different person.

The brief colloquy between the abbess and Eva already appeared to her
too long, and when the former bade her finish her business later with
Els and old Martsche, she angrily declared that, with all due reverence
for the Lady Abbess, she must inform Jungfrau Eva also what compelled
her, a virtuous woman with a grateful heart, to take her children from
the service of the employer for whom her husband had sacrificed his
life.

Els, who was eager to conceal the woman's insulting errand from Eva,
tried to silence Frau Vorkler, but she defiantly persisted, and with
redoubled zeal protested that speak she must or her heart would break.
Then she declared that she had been proud to place her children in so
godly a household, but now everything was changed, and though it grieved
her to the soul, she must insist upon taking Metz and Ortel from its
service. She lived by the piety of people who bought candles for the
dear saints and rosaries for praying; but even the most devout had eyes
everywhere, and if it were known that her young children were serving in
a house where such things happened, as alas! were reported through the
whole city concerning the daughters of this family----

Here old Martsche with honest indignation interrupted the excited woman;
but Fran Vorkler would not be silenced, and asked what a poor girl like
her Metz possessed except her good name. How quickly suspicion would
rest on a lass whose respectability was questioned! People had begun to
do so ever since the Ortlieb sisters were called the "beautiful" instead
of the pious and virtuous Es. This showed how such notice of the face
and figure benefited Christian maidens. Yesterday and to-day she had
given a three-farthing candle to her saint as a thank offering that this
horror had not reached their mother's ears. The dead woman had been a
truly devout and noble lady, and her soul would be grateful to her for
impressing upon the minds of her motherless daughters that the path
which they had recklessly entered----

This was too much for Ortel, who, concealed behind a heap of sacks, had
listened to the discussion, and clasping his hands beseechingly, he
now went up to his mother and entreated her to beware of repeating
the slanders of evil-minded people who had dared to cast stones at the
gracious maidens, who were as pure and innocent as their saint herself