moured that he had struggled
bravely with death--or rather that he could not die, because the curse
was upon him--until the maiden, garbed in white as usual, appeared to
him once more. That then he stretched forth his hands--she stooped
over him. He raised his head--she kissed his lips--and he died.

The White Maiden, tradition says, has not since been seen in the ruins
of Thurnberg.

THE STURGEON.

The Convent of Schwartz-Rheindorf was founded in the year of our Lord
1152 by the Bishop of Cologne, Arnold Graf von Wied, for the reception
of noble ladies alone, and was placed by him under the strict rule of
St. Benedict. The prelate, who died in the year 1159, lies buried
beneath the high altar of the church.

Among the many other rights and privileges conferred on the convent by
the Bishop was the right of fishing in the river, within certain
limits above and below the convent's territorial boundaries. This was
a most valuable right for a long period.

The certainty of a profitable fishing was always heralded by the
appearance of two immense sturgeon. They came at the commencement of
each year, harbingers of good luck, and they were ever succeeded by
shoals of river fish, in such numbers as to be absolutely
inexhaustible until the expiration of the season. Of these sturgeon
the one, a huge male, always allowed himself to be taken by the
fishermen, but the female was never captured. It was understood by
those who knew all about these matters that on her freedom depended
the fisher's success. This good fortune lasted for centuries.

It was, however, remarked that as the discipline of the convent became
more and more relaxed, and grace grew to be less and less among its
inmates, the fishing became more and more unprofitable. The sturgeon,
it is true, still made their appearance, but they were spent and thin,
and altogether unlike those which had been wont of yore to visit the
fishing-ground of the sisterhood. The abbess and the nuns, however,
either could not or they would not perceive the cause of the falling
off in the take, or the change in the appearance of the sturgeon, but
the common people who dwelt in the vicinity of the convent, and
especially those poor persons to whom the river had been heretofore a
source of support, were neither slow in seeing the cause nor in
publishing the consequences to the world. Thus stood matters:
dissoluteness of life on the one hand, distress on the other;
profligacy a