her;
for how many traits of simple, self-sacrificing readiness to help,
what touching contentment and grateful joy in the veriest trifle,
what childlike piety and humble resignation even amidst intolerable
suffering, these unfortunates had shown! Nay, when she had become
familiar with the lives of many of her protegees and learned how they
had fallen into the hands of the executioner and reached Schweinau, she
had asked herself whether, under similar circumstances, the majority of
those who belonged to her own sphere in life would not have found the
way there far more speedily, and whether they would have endured the
punishment inflicted half so patiently or with so much freedom from
bitterness and rebellion against the decrees of the Most High. She had
discovered salutary sap in many a human plant that had at first seemed
absolutely poisonous; where she had shrunk from touching such impurity,
violets and lilies had bloomed amidst the mire. Instead of holding her
head haughtily erect, she had often left the hospital with a sense of
shame, and it was long since she had ceased to use the proud privilege
of her rank to despise people of lower degree. If sometimes tempted to
exercise it, the impulse was roused far more frequently by those of her
own station, who were base in mind and heart, than by the sufferers in
the hospital.

She had become very modest in regard to herself, why should she wake to
new life the arrogance now hushed in Eva's breast?

Much secret distress of mind and anguish of soul had been endured by the
poor child, who yesterday had opened her whole heart to her, when she
went to rest in her chamber. How lowly she felt, how humble was the
little saint who recently had elevated herself above others only too
quickly and willingly! It would do her good to descend to the lowest
ranks and measure her own better fate by their misery. She who felt
bereaved could always be the giver in the hospital, and she felt with
subtle sympathy what attracted Eva to her sufferers.

The magistrate's wife was a religious matron, devoted to her Church, but
in her youth she had been by no means fanatical. The Abbess Kunigunde,
her younger sister, however, had fought before her eyes the conflict of
the soul, which had finally sent the beautiful, much-admired girl within
convent walls. No one except her quiet, silent sister Christine had
been permitted to witness the mental struggle, and the latter now saw
repeated in her you