out the town, that the Prince Bishop, whose arrival from Fulda at
his castle of Saaleck, close at hand, had been announced, was about to
make his entrance in grand state, and that a holy and solemn service to
celebrate this event was to be performed at the high church.

Already, however, other rumours were afloat among the crowd; and it
began to be confidently stated, that a sudden change of plans had forced
the Prince Bishop to renounce his intention.

Listening with anxiety, on the outskirts of a group, to the discussion
upon the probabilities or improbabilities of the service taking place in
the absence of the Prince, stood Magdalena. She was attired in her usual
dark semi-monastic dress; but to this was now added the scrip, wallet,
and tall crossheaded staff of the wandering pilgrim. As the prevailing
opinion appeared to be that the Ober-Amtmann would attend, at all
events, at the celebration of the church rites intended to be performed,
Magdalena turned away with a calmer air, murmuring to herself the
words--

"I shall see her once more--once, and for the last time: and God surely
will forgive the sin, if such it be. One look of last farewell! and then
again a long expiation of penitence and prayer."

So saying, she traversed the small square to the broad stairs of the
church, where she sat herself down upon the highest step, among a group
of beggar women and ragged children, and, sinking her head to the
ground, seemed to dispose herself to wait with patience.

Shortly afterwards, a young man also began to mount the steps leading to
the great entrance of the church, as if with the intention of placing
himself near the arch, in so favourable a position as to be close by all
those who should pass into the interior. He bounded upwards with anxious
haste and beating heart--although there was yet a long interval before
the commencement of the service--and with a movement so hurried and
agitated, that he brushed rudely against one person of a group in his
way. He turned, with a gentleness of feeling unusual at the time towards
the lower classes, to crave of the female he had pushed a pardon for his
awkwardness. At the sound of his voice the old woman raised her head.

"Magdalena!" cried the young man with surprise, as he recognised upon
her the evident symbols of travel and wayfaring peculiar to that age,
"What means this pilgrim's garb?"

"Alas! kind, gentle Master Gottlob," replied Magdalena in a tone of the
bit