ogel which could make the largest
loan to the Emperor Rudolph, who often lacked necessary funds.

At the Reichstag of the year 1289, whose memory is shadowed by many a
sorrowful incident, most of the persons mentioned in our story met once
more.

Countess Cordula, now the happy wife of Sir Boemund Altrosen, had also
come and again lodged in the Ortlieb house. But this time the only
person whose homage pleased her was the grey-haired, but still vigorous
and somewhat irascible Herr Ernst Ortlieb.

The Abbess Kunigunde alone was absent. When, after many an arduous
conflict, especially with the Dominicans, who did not cease to accuse
her of lukewarmness, she felt death approaching, she had summoned her
darling Eva from Swabia, and the young wife's husband, who never left
her save when he was wielding his sword for the Emperor, willingly
accompanied her to Nuremberg.

With Eva's hand clasped in hers, and supported by Els, the abbess died
peacefully, rich in beautiful hopes. How often she had described such
an end to her pupil as the fairest reward for the sacrifices in which
convent life was so rich! But the memory of her mother's decease had
brought to Eva, while in Schweinau, the firm conviction that dwellers in
the world were also permitted to find a similar end. The Saviour Himself
had promised the crown of eternal life to those who were faithful unto
death, and she and her husband maintained inviolable fidelity to the
Saviour, to each other, and to every duty which religion, law, and love
commanded them to fulfil. Therefore, why should they not be permitted to
die as happily and confidently as her aunt, the abbess?

Her life was rich in happiness, and though Heinz Schorlin as a husband
and father, as the brave and loyal liegeman of his Emperor, and the
prudent manager of his estate, regained his former light-heartedness,
and taught his wife to share it, both never forgot the painful conflict
by which they had won each other.

When Eva passed the village forge and saw the smith draw the glowing
iron from the fire and, with heavy hammer strokes, fashion it upon the
anvil as he desired, she often remembered the grievous days after her
mother's death, which had made the "little saint"--she did not admit it
herself, but the whole Swabian nobility agreed in the opinion--the most
faithful of wives and mothers, the Providence of the poor, the zealous
promoter of goodness, the most simply attired of noblewomen far and
nea