But the Frau Consul made more demands upon herself than upon her children. She instituted a Sunday School, and on Sunday afternoon only little board-school pupils rang at the door of the house in Meng Street. Stine Voss, who lived by the city wall, and Mike Stuht from Bell-Founders’ Street, and Fike Snut from the river-bank or Groping Alley, their straw-coloured locks smoothed back with a wet comb, crossed the entry into the garden-room, which for a long time now had not been used as an office, and in which rows of benches had been arranged and Frau Consul Buddenbrook, born Kröger, in a gown of heavy black satin, with her white refined face and still whiter lace cap, sat opposite to them at a little table with a glass of sugar-water and catechized them for an hour. Also, she founded the “Jerusalem evenings,” which not only Clara and Clothilde but also Tony were obliged to attend, willy-nilly. Once a week they sat at the extension-table in the dining-room by the light of lamps and candles. Some twenty ladies, all of an age when it is profitable to begin to look after a good place in heaven, drank tea or bishop, ate delicate sandwiches and puddings, read hymns and sermons aloud to each other, and did embroidery, which at the end of the year was sold at a bazaar and the proceeds sent to the mission in Jerusalem. This pious society was formed in the main from ladies of the Frau Consul’s own social rank: Frau Senator Langhals, Frau Consul Möllendorpf, and old Frau Consul Kistenmaker belonged; but other, more worldly and profane old ladies, like Mme. Köppen, made fun of their friend Betsy. The wives of the clergymen of the town were all members, likewise the widowed Frau Consul Buddenbrook, born Stüwing, and Sesemi Weichbrodt and her simple sister. There is, however, no rank and no discrimination before Jesus; and so certain humble oddities were also guests at the Jerusalem evenings--for example, a little wrinkled creature, rich in the grace of God and knitting-patterns, who lived in the Holy Ghost Hospital and was named Himmelsburger. She was the last of her name--“the last Himmelsburger,” she called herself humbly, and ran her knitting-needle under her cap to scratch her head.