."

While speaking she smoothed, with two swift motions of her hands, the
brown hair which had become a little disordered while bustling to and fro
to attend to the business, dipped her hands into the water pail, dried
them quickly on her apron, untied it, and tossed it to the maid. Then she
cleared her throat vigorously and left the kitchen.

In reply to the anxious question of her husband, whom she met on the
threshold of the room, as to what she was seeking there, she answered
firmly, "What is right and pious"; then modestly whispered her request to
the abbot.

Her wish was fulfilled without delay, nay, it might really have been
supposed that the interruption was very opportune to the distinguished
prelate; for, with the brief exclamation, "Imperative official duty!" he
rose from the table, and went first with the landlady to Kuni and
afterward with the latter to the cart beside the laden potter's wain,
whose white tilt gleamed in the darkness.

The landlady had undertaken to send to the sexton, whose house was near,
that he might immediately obtain everything the abbot needed for the
dying woman's viaticum.

Kuni told the sufferer what an exalted servant of the Church was ready to
receive her confession and give her the sacrament.

Then she whispered that she might mention Nickel's burdened soul to the
abbot. Whatever happened, she could now depart from earth in peace.

Reserving for herself half of the flowers she had gathered in the garden
she glided away, in order not to disturb the dying woman's confession.

CHAPTER X.

At the edge of the meadow Kuni paused to reflect. She would gladly have
flung herself down on the dewy grass to rest, stretched at full length on
the cool turf. She was worn out, and her foot ached and burned painfully
after her long walk in the warm August night; but something else exerted
a still stronger attraction over her poor longing heart; the desire to
see Lienhard again and give him the pinks as a token of gratitude for so
much kindness.

He was still sitting with the other gentlemen at the table in front of
the tavern. One of the torches threw its light full on his manly face.
Kuni knew that he could not see her in the darkness surrounding her
figure, yet it seemed as though she was meeting the gaze of his sparkling
dark eyes. Now he was speaking. How she longed to know what he said.
Summoning up her courage, she glided along in the shadow of the wall and
sat down behi