rlight night. The sick woman could enjoy
their fragrance now, and to-morrow, feast her eyes upon their bright
colours.

From childhood she had always been fond of flowers. Stealing was
prohibited by her father as wicked and dangerous, and she had never
transgressed his commands. When she picked up the costly rosary in
Nuremberg, she had intended to return it to the owner. But to pluck the
flowers and fruit which the Lord caused to grow and ripen for every one
was a different thing, and had never troubled her conscience. So she
carelessly gathered a few pinks. Three should go to the sick woman, but
Lienhard Groland would have the largest and finest. She would try to slip
the flowers into his hand, with the money, as a token of her gratitude.
But even while saying to herself that these blossoms should be her last
greeting to him, she felt the red spots burning more hotly on her cheeks.
Ah, if only he would accept the pinks! Then the most cruel things might
happen, she could bear them.

While kneeling before the bed, the waiter, Dietel, noticed her. As she
saw him also, she hurried back to the suffering mother as fast as her
lame limb would carry her, and raised the jug of fresh water to her
parched lips.

This had been a delicious refreshment to the sick woman, and when Kuni
saw how much comfort her little service afforded the invalid, her heart
grew lighter. Had it been possible she, who was of no importance to any
one, would willingly have lain down on the heap of straw in the place of
the mother upon whom two young lives depended.

How delightful it was to bring aid! And she possessed the means of being
helpful.

So, with sparkling eyes, she pressed the three gold coins into the
sufferer's burning hand, and told her that the village authorities would
rear the twins for such a sum. Then the parched lips of the fevered woman
lauded the merciful kindness bestowed by the lame ropedancer--who at that
moment seemed to her as powerful as a queen--so warmly and tenderly that
Kuni felt the blood again mount into her cheeks--this time with shame at
the praise which she deserved so little, yet which rendered her so happy.
Finally, the sufferer expressed a desire for a priest, that she might not
pass from earth without a sacrament. Her sins oppressed her sorely. She,
and she alone, was to blame for Nickel's being hanged. Never in all her
life had she been a glutton; but before the birth of the twins the devil
had tormented h