tness to her troth, though no one save He and His
heavenly Father had witnessed her silent vow?

She belonged to Heinz, and he--she knew it--to her. Even though later,
after all the world had acknowledged her innocence, the walls of convent
and monastery divided them, their souls would remain indissolubly
united. If there should be no meeting for them here below, in the other
world the Saviour would lead them to each other the more surely, the
more obediently they strove to fulfil His divine command. As Heinz
desired to take up the cross in imitation of Christ she, too, would
bear it. It was to be found beside the straw pallets of the wounded
criminals. The fulfilment of every hard duty which she voluntarily
performed seemed like a step that brought her nearer to the Saviour,
and at the same time to the union with her lover, even though in another
world.

The first request she made to her aunt on the way to mass, early in the
morning of the first day of her stay in Schweinau, was an entreaty for
permission to work in the hospital. It was granted, but not until the
eyes of the experienced woman, ever prompt in decision, had rested with
anxious hesitation upon the beautiful face and exquisite lithe young
figure. The thought that it would be a pity for such lovely, pure,
stainless girlish charms to be used in the service of these outcasts had
almost determined her to utter a resolute "No"; but she did not do it;
nay, a flush of shame crimsoned her face as her eyes rested on the image
of the crucified Redeemer which stood beside the road leading to the
little village church; for whom had He, the Most High, summoned to
His service and deemed specially worthy of the kingdom of heaven? The
simple-hearted, the children, the adulterers, the sinners and publicans,
the despised, and the poor! No, no, it would not degrade the lovely
child to help the miserable creatures yonder, any more than it did the
rarest plant which she raised in her herb garden when she used it to
heal the hurts of some abandoned wretch.

And besides, with what deep loathing she herself had gone to the
hospital at first, and how fully conscious of her own infinite
superiority she had returned from amongst these depraved beings to the
outdoor air.

Yet how this feeling, which had stirred within her heart, gradually
changed!

During her closer acquaintance with the poor and the despised, the
nature and work of Christ first became perfectly intelligible to