ce of liberty. The kind efforts of the abbess to
keep her in the cloister, and teach her to make herself useful there by
sewing, were unsuccessful; for she could not turn the spinning wheel
on account of her amputated foot, and she had neither inclination nor
patience for the finer branches of needlework.

Those who charged her with a lamentable lack of perseverance were right;
the linen which she began to hem fell into her lap only too soon.
When her eyes--which could see nothing here except a small walled
yard--closed while she was working, the others thought that she was
asleep; but her mind remained awake, though she had lowered her lids,
and it wandered restlessly over valleys rivers, and mountains through
the wide, wide world. She saw herself in imagination travelling along
the highway with nimble jugglers merry musicians, and other care-free
vagrant folk, instead of plying the needle. Even the whirling dust, the
rushing wind, and the refreshing rain outside seemed desirable compared
with the heavy convent air impregnated by a perpetual odour of lavender.

When at last, in the month of March, little Afra, the fair-haired niece
of the portress, brought her the first snowdrop, and Kuni saw a pair
of starlings enter the box on the budding linden before her window, she
could no longer bear her imprisonment in the convent.

Within these walls she must fade, perhaps die and return to dust. In
spite of all the warnings, representations, entreaties, and promises
of those who--she gratefully perceived it--meant well toward her, she
persisted in her desire to be dismissed, to live out of doors as she had
always done. At last they paid her what was due, but she accepted
only the Emperor's bounty, proudly refusing Lienhard Groland's money,
earnestly as she was urged to add it to the other and to the viaticum
bestowed by the nuns.

CHAPTER VII.

The April sun was shining brightly when the convent gates closed behind
Kuni. The lindens in the square were already putting forth young leaves,
the birds were singing, and her heart swelled more joyously than it had
done for many years.

True, the cough which had tormented her all winter attacked her in the
shady cloister, but she had learned to use her wooden foot, and with a
cane in one hand and her little bundle in the other she moved sturdily
on. After making her pilgrimage to Compostella, she intended to seek her
old employer, Loni. Perhaps he could give her a place a