eceived, I shall count this morning among those never to be
forgotten. O gentlemen, death is a serious matter, and intercourse with
the dying is the best school for the priest. Then the inmost depths of
the soul are opened to him."

"And," observed Wilibald Pirckheimer, "I think the psychologist would
then learn that, the deeper we penetrate the human breast, the darker is
the spectacle."

"Yes, my learned friend," the abbot answered, "but we also perceive that
the deepest and darkest shafts contain the purest specimens of gold and
silver ore."

"And were you really permitted to find such in this neglected vagabond,
reverend sir?" asked Doctor Eberbach, with an incredulous smile.

"As certainly," answered the prelate with repellent dignity, "as that the
Saviour was right when he called those who were pure in heart blessed
above those who were wise and overflowing with knowledge!"

Then, without waiting for the Thuringian's answer, he hastily turned to
the young ambassador and begged him to grant the dying girl, who clung to
him with tender devotion, a brief farewell.

"Willingly," replied Lienhard, requesting the physician to accompany him.

The latter had just beckoned Doctor Peutinger to his side, to examine
with him the indulgence which he had found under the kerchief crossed
over the sick girl's bosom. It did not secure redemption from the flames
of purgatory for the ropedancer's soul, as the gentlemen expected, but
for another, and that other--the learned humanist and Imperial Councillor
would not believe his own eyes--was his beloved, prematurely lost child.
There, in large letters, was "Juliane Peutinger of Augsburg."

Astonished, almost bewildered, the usually quiet statesman expressed his
amazement.

The other gentlemen were preparing to examine the paper with him, when
the abbot, without betraying the secret of Kuni's heart, which she had
confided to him in her confession, told Juliane's father that the
ropedancer had scarcely left the convent ere she gave up both the
Emperor's gift and the viaticum--in short, her whole property, which
would have been large enough to support her a long time--in order to do
what she could for the salvation of the child for whom her soul was more
concerned than for her own welfare.

The astonished father's eyes filled with tears of grateful emotion, and
when Lienhard went with the gray-haired leech to the dying girl Doctor
Peutinger begged permission to accompany them