r and deposited the same amount with the
abbess, in case she should recover the use of her limbs and did not
prefer to spend the remainder of her life here, though only as a lay
sister. In that case he would be ready to defray the cost of admission.

"That the lofty convent walls might rise between him and the sight of
me!" Kuni said to herself at this information, with a bitter smile.
On the--other hand, her eyes filled with tears of genuine emotion
and sincere shame, when she learned from the leech that Herr Lienhard
Groland's lovely wife had come daily to the convent to inquire about
her, and had even honoured her couch with a visit several times. She
did not remain absent until one day, in the noble lady's presence, Kuni,
when her fever was fiercest, loaded the wearer of the wreath, whom her
delirium often brought before her as a nightmare, with the most savage
and blasphemous curses. The gracious young wife was overwhelmed with
horror, which had doubtless prevented her return, unless her absence was
due to departure from the city. Besides, she had committed the care of
inquiring about her convalescence to an aristocratic friend in Augsburg,
the wife of the learned city clerk, Doctor Peutinger, a member of the
famous Welser family of Augsburg. The latter had often inquired for her
in person, until the illness of her own dear child had kept her at home.
Yet, in spite of this, her housekeeper had appeared the day before to
inform the abbess that, if the injured girl should recover and wished
to lead a respectable life in future, she might be sure of a welcome
and easy duties in her own household. This surely ought to be a great
comfort to Kuni, the physician added; for she could no longer pursue
rope-dancing, and the Peutingers were lavishly endowed with worldly
goods and intellectual gifts, and, besides, were people of genuine
Christian spirit. The convent, too, would be ready to receive her--the
abbess had told him so--if Herr Groland, of Nuremberg, kept his promise
of paying her admission dues.

All these things awakened a new world of thoughts and feelings in
the convalescent. That they ought, above all, to have aroused sincere
gratitude, she felt keenly, yet she could not succeed in being
especially thankful. It would be doing Lienhard a favour, she repeated
to herself, if she should enter a convent, and she would rather have
sought shelter in a lion's den than under the Peutinger roof. She had
been informed the