den. But, child, to what am
I sending you?'

Wilhelmine started; she knew by his last words that he could procure the
money.

'To success!' she answered in a low voice.

'Success? Yes, probably, but that is the greatest danger! We can most of
us remain pure of heart, tender, generous while we are poor or sad, but
it is when the world smiles that the heart so often grows cold and hard.'

Wilhelmine clambered on to the organ bench, pushing Monsieur Gabriel
gently aside. She struck a chord, but the half-witted bellows-blower,
whose presence they had forgotten, had ceased to pump air into the organ,
and there came only a painful droning from the empty pipes. She called to
him imperiously, and with a muttered grumble he resumed his pumping.

'A bad omen,' said Wilhelmine; 'I strike a chord and I achieve dissonance
and wailing.' She threw back her head and pressed her fingers on the
keyboard: this time a thin flute-like chord came forth, and Wilhelmine
lifted her voice and sang:

'Cher ami de ma jeunesse
Souriez a ma liesse--
Au Printemps chansons et fleurs!
Pour l'hiver gardons les pleurs.

Cher ami, la vieillesse
Est reveche a l'alegresse
Je cueillerai les douces fleurs
Pour l'hiver gardant mes pleurs.'

She managed the organ wonderfully, and succeeded so well in playing a
light, graceful accompaniment to the old French melody, that Monsieur
Gabriel, listening with a smile and nodding his head, whispered as though
to some invisible confidant: 'I have made her a true artist!--no, God
makes the artist, but those who love them teach them to give their genius
to the world. Well, my child,' he continued, 'I will find the money for
you, but leave me now. Be satisfied, your song has done its work; I will
send you on your search for the flowers, and God grant you may not find
the tears too soon!--I do not love that song with its refrain of fleurs
et pleurs, it is so terribly true.' But Wilhelmine was not listening to
his rambling talk; her strange eyes had lost the brightness which had
been theirs while she sang the gay French song; they had narrowed to that
hard, compelling gaze which, in truth, was curiously serpent-like in its
cold fixity.

Monsieur Gabriel laid his hand on her shoulder, and together they went
down into the silent nave of the church. They separated at the door; the
old man going up the Klosterstrasse to the schoolhouse, while Wilhelmine
walked rapidly away, th