stian woman and did not forget her soldier
tricks," writes Johanna. For once when she saw some strange turkeys on
the road she seized the best of them. To cook this stolen roast the
housekeeper sent Johanna up into a high tower to throw down some loose
dry boards. The child fell and lay stunned for a long time. When she
regained consciousness and returned to the house she was well scolded
for her clumsiness. Johanna refused to go to the table. "I sat apart,"
she writes, "because I would not eat any of the stolen fowl. It appeared
to me truly disgraceful, though I was too timid to say so." It makes a
pathetic little picture this baby's martyrdom for conscience' sake.

At the age of twelve, soon after her confirmation, Johanna was sent as
maid of waiting to the court of the Countess of Solms Roedelheim. The
countess was partially insane. "She imagined I was a little dog and
often beat me," Johanna writes. "Whenever we rode over the flooded
meadows, she would push me out of the carriage, bidding me swim." Prayer
was the lonely, unhappy child's only solace. The countess grew so
violent that, at last, Johanna was transferred to the court of the
Duchess of Holstein. She accompanied the stepdaughter of the duchess on
her bridal journey to Austria, and, in spite of her ever nagging
conscience, had an agreeable time.

"The drums and trumpets sounded beautiful on the water," says she; "only
I could not help being worried to think I was going to a popish country.
Whenever we stopped at an inn I sought a solitary place, fell on my
knees and prayed God to prevent my good fortune from working injury to
my salvation."

The Duchess of Holstein loved Johanna like a daughter. Johanna laments
her own fancied worldliness in girlhood: "I practised myself in all
kinds of accomplishments, so that I excelled in these vanities. They
were dear and pleasing to me. I had also a real liking for splendid
dress because it became me well. People considered me Godly because I
liked to read and pray and went to church and could always give a good
account of the sermon. I even knew what had been preached upon the same
text the preceding year. I was looked upon as a Godly maiden, but I was
not really a true follower of Christ."

Nevertheless, Johanna was not worldly enough to suit the bridegroom a
gay young lieutenant-colonel to whom her friends had affianced her. He
broke the engagement because he complained, "though pretty and
well-born, she is alto