y legends, who had entered the fierce lion's cage
undismayed, and had gladly given her blood for the sake of her Heavenly
Bridegroom.

"Lord Jesus," she cried loudly and fervently, then, pressing her folded
hands to her heart, she smiled at her father. "Daddy, my daddy."

For a few seconds the old man's grin grew even broader, but then his
face became calm. Daddy? He looked at his daughter in astonishment and
stammered, "Little Boehnke has gone--who's speaking--so kindly?"

"I, Rosa."

He shook his head peevishly. "Don't want her."

A happy thought struck her. Laying her trembling hand on his, she said
in a low, persuasive voice, "It's I, Roeschen, your little star, your
red-haired girl, your wee birdie, your----" the tears welled into her
eyes; she gulped them down bravely, but her voice choked.

Then he continued, "My sun, the key which is to [Pg 298] open heaven's
door for me--ah!"--he smirked as though he remembered something, and
then added as tenderly as he could in his husky, faltering voice, "my
consolation." He looked at her, felt her hair as he had done before,
and passed his hands over her as she stood before him tall and
slender, for she had jumped up from her knees in her bitter, painful
emotion. "Too big--too big--you're not my wee one, not my little
daughter--Roeschen--my sun--my consolation." And he looked down at the
floor and smiled, as if a tiny little girl were standing there, who was
not yet big enough to reach up to the table.

"But I _am_ Roeschen," said the girl quickly, as she seized hold of his
hands with her feeble ones, and pressed and shook them as if she wanted
to bring him to his senses in that way.

He continued, however, to speak to an imaginary little child on the
floor, as though he were mad or intoxicated. "Are you coming to daddy?
Poor daddy is always alone, quite alone since little Boehnke has gone."
Then he added in a mysterious, almost unintelligible whisper, "Sophia
is going to kill him--they'll all help to kill him--poor Mr. Tiralla."
He shook his head miserably.

"Father, I--I'm with you--I'll stop with you," cried Rosa, shaken by
his plaint. What awful things he imagined, poor, unhappy man. "I'll
help you. And the Lord will help you, and His most Holy Mother Mary,"
she added solemnly, and made the sign of the cross on his forehead and
breast as well as on her own. "May the Lord help you and us." And then
she said resolutely and courageously--what was the good of hesi