of in public. So she came here. But as her poor body was too
fragile to withstand all the trouble which had come upon her, she had
a violent attack of fever, and a few hours ago death stretched its hand
towards her."

"And the children?" asked Frau Christine, deeply moved.

"She was allowed to have the baby," answered Sister Hildegard, "but she
told us about the others and their desolate condition. In the delirium
of fever she saw them stealing and the constable seizing them. Then your
Eva encouraged me to send for them by promising to provide their food.
So they came here. The worker on cloth from whom she rented her little
room had helped them, and it was from her that Sister Pauline, whom I
sent there, first learned that Walpurga, for whose sake she had so sadly
forgotten her duty, was not even her own child, but an adopted one
whom her late husband, on one of his trips, had found abandoned on the
highroad at Vierzehnheiligen, beside an image of the Virgin, and brought
home with him."

Here Sister Hildegard paused, and Frau Christine also remained silent a
long time.

Yet, it was horrible here, and the air was impure; but had Countess
Cordula looked more closely she would probably have seen one of
the beautiful flowers which often bloomed amidst all the weeds, the
poisonous and parasitic vegetation.

Eva was right to pity this woman, and if her life could be saved she
herself would relieve her necessities and secure her children's future.
She silently made this resolve whilst the Sister led the way to the
couch of the scourged thief. The unfortunate woman should learn that
God often compels us to traverse the roughest and stoniest paths in the
wilderness ere he leads us into the Promised Land.

Eva was so deeply absorbed in her conversation with the Dominican that
she did not see her aunt until she stood before her.

They greeted each other with a silent nod, and a smile of satisfaction
flitted over the girl's face as she motioned to the sleeper whose
slumber she was watching.

The young mother's pretty face still glowed with the flush of fever. One
arm clasped the baby, which lay amidst the white linen Katterle had just
brought. He was a pretty child, who showed no traces of the poverty in
which he had been reared. Beside the widow were two little girls about
six years old. The one at the left was sound asleep, with her head
resting on her little fat arm. The other, at the sick woman's right,
pressed her f