trate and his wife, on the contrary, thought that they
knew. They had helped the sisters to receive the first callers; but when
Frau Barbara Behaim, a cousin of the late Frau Maria, had appeared, they
gave up their post to her, and slipped quietly into the next room to
escape the throng.

There they retired to the niche formed by the deep walls of the broad
central window of the house, and Herr Berthold Pfinzing whispered to his
wife: "There was too much philanthropy and kindness for me in there. A
great deal of honey at once cloys me. But you, prophetess, foresaw what
is now occurring, and I, too, scarcely expected anything different. So
long as one still has a doublet left compassion is in no haste, but
when the last shirt is stripped from the body charity--thank the
saints!--moves faster. We are most ready to help those who, we feel very
sure, are suffering more than they deserve. There are many motherless
children; but young girls who have lost both parents, exposed to every
injustice----"

"Are certainly rare birds," his wife interrupted, "and this will
undoubtedly be of service to the children. But if they are now invited
to the houses of the same worthy folk who, a few hours ago, thought
themselves too good to attend the funeral of their admirable mother, and
anxiously kept their own little daughters away from them, they probably
owe it especially to the right mediators, noble old Vorchtel and
another."

"To-day, if ever, certainly furnished evidence how heavily the testimony
and example of a really estimable man weighs on the scale. The First
Losunger interceded for the children as if they were his own daughters,
attacked the slanderers, and of course I didn't leave him in the lurch."

"Peter Holzschuher declared that you defended them like the Roman
Cicero," cried Frau Christine merrily. "But don't be vexed,
dear husband; no matter how heavily the influence of the two
Bertholds--Vorchtel's and yours--weighed in the balance, nay, had that
of a third and a fourth of the best Councillors been added, what is now
taking place before our eyes and ears would not have happened, if---"

"Well?" asked the magistrate eagerly.

"If," replied the matron in a tone of the firmest conviction, "they
had not all been far from believing, even for a moment, in their inmost
souls the shameful calumny which baseness dared to cast upon those
two--just look more closely."

"Yet if that was really the case--" her husband began