face, interrupted her
with the promise to do what she could for the poor woman.

"If it were any one else," she continued, significantly, "I would
not venture to try it. But the Abbot of St. AEgidius, in his charity,
scarcely asks, when help is needed, whence did you come, who are you,
or what do you possess? I know him. Wait here a little while. If he
condescends to do it, you can take him to the poor creature at once."

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 si