osen to assert some right to a footing in the
most exclusive aristocracy in the world, it is not impossible that the
protection of the Abbess might have helped her to obtain it. The secret
of her birth would, however, have rendered a marriage with a man of that
class all but impossible, and would have entirely excluded her from
the only other position considered dignified for a well-born woman
of fortune, unmarried and wholly without living relations or
connections--that of a lady-canoness on the Crown foundation. Moreover,
her wild bringing-up, and the singular natural gifts she possessed, and
which she could not resist the impulse to exercise, had in a few months
placed her in a position from which no escape was possible so long as
she continued to live in Prague; and against those few--chiefly men--who
for her beauty's sake, or out of curiosity, would gladly have made her
acquaintance, she raised an impassable barrier of pride and reserve.
Nor was her reputation altogether an evil one. She lived in a strange
fashion, it is true, but the very fact of her extreme seclusion had kept
her name free from stain. If people spoke of her as the Witch, it
was more from habit and half in jest than in earnest. In strong
contradiction to the cruelty which she could exercise ruthlessly when
roused to anger, was her well-known kindness to the poor, and her
charities to institutions founded for their benefit were in reality
considerable, and were said to be boundless. These explanations seem
necessary in order to account for the readiness with which she turned
to the convent when she was in danger, and for the facilities which were
then at once offered her for a stay long or short, as she should please
to make it. Some of the more suspicious nuns looked grave when they
heard that she was under their roof; others, again, had been attached
to her during the time she had formerly spent among them; and there were
not lacking those who, disapproving of her presence, held their peace,
in the anticipation that the rich and eccentric lady would on departing
present a gift of value to their order.

The rooms which were kept at the disposal of ladies desiring to make a
religious retreat for a short time were situated on the first floor of
one wing of the convent overlooking a garden which was not within the
cloistered precincts, but which was cultivated for the convenience of
the nuns, who themselves never entered it. The windows on this side w