ty marvellous in a man of his years.

Ortel was terribly agitated. Soon after his mother's departure he went
with his sister to the woodhouse, where both wept bitterly; for Metz
had given her heart to a young carrier who was expected to return from
a trip to Frankfort the first of July, and would rather have thrown
herself into the Pegnitz than married the rich old tailor to whom she
knew her mother had promised her pretty daughter; whilst her brother,
like many youths of his station, thought that the place of driver of a
six-horse wain was the most delightful calling in the world, and both
were warmly attached to their employer and the family whom they served.
And yet both felt that it was a heavy sin to refuse to obey their
mother.

CHAPTER VII.

Eva was spared witnessing the close of this unpleasant incident. The
abbess had led her up the stairs into the sitting-room. St. Clare
herself, she thought, had sent Fran Vorkler to render the choice she
intended to place before her niece that very day easier for Eva.

Even whilst ascending the broad steps she put her arm around her, but
in the apartment, whence the noonday sun had been shut out and they
were greeted with a cool atmosphere perfumed with the fragrance of the
bouquets of roses and mignonette which Eva and the gardener had set
in jars on the mantelpiece early in the morning, the abbess drew her
darling closer to her side, saying, "The world is again showing you its
most disagreeable face, my poor child, ere you bid it farewell."

She kissed her brow and eyes tenderly as she spoke, expecting Eva, as
she had often done when anything troubled her young soul, to return the
caress impulsively, and accept with grateful impetuosity the invitation
to the shelter which she offered; but the vile assault of the coarse
woman who brought to her knowledge what people were thinking and saying
about her produced upon the strange child, who had already given her
many a surprise, an effect precisely opposite to her expectations. No,
Eva had by no means forgotten the pain inflicted by Frau Vorkler's base
accusations; but if whilst in the sedan-chair she had feared that she
should lack courage to inflict upon her beloved aunt and friend so great
a disappointment, she now felt that this dread had been needless, and
that her offended maidenly pride absolved her from consideration for any
person.

With cautious tenderness she released herself from the arms of the
abbess,