"Elizabeth, in the absence of her husband, daily visited the poor, who dwelt in the suburbs of Eisenach and in the huts of the neighboring valleys. One day, during a severe winter, she left her castle with a single attendant, carrying in the skirts of her robe a supply of bread, meat, and eggs for a certain poor family; and, as she was descending the frozen and slippery path, her husband, returning from the chase, met her, bending under the weight of her charitable burden. 'What dost thou here, my Elizabeth?' he said. 'Let us see what thou art carrying away?' and she, confused and blushing to be so discovered, pressed her mantle to her bosom; but he insisted, and, opening her robe, he beheld only red and white roses, more beautiful and fragrant than any that grow on this earth, even at summer-tide; and it was now the depth of winter! "Then he was about to embrace his wife, but, looking in her face, he was overawed by a supernatural glory, which seemed to emanate from every feature, and he dared not touch her; he bade her go on her way and fulfil her mission; but, taking from her lap one of the roses of Paradise, he put it in his bosom, and continued to ascend the mountain slowly, with his head declined, and pondering these things in his heart. "In 1226, a terrible famine afflicted all Germany; but the country of Thuringia suffered more than any other. Elizabeth distributed to the poor all the corn in the royal granaries. Every day a certain quantity of bread was baked, and she herself served it out to the people, who thronged around the gates of the castle, sometimes to the number of nine hundred. Uniting prudence with charity, she so arranged that each person had his just share, and so husbanded her resources that they lasted through the summer; and when harvest-time came round again, she sent them into the fields, provided with scythes and sickles, and to every man she gave a shirt and a pair of new shoes. But, as was usual, the famine had been succeeded by a great plague and mortality, and the indefatigable and inexhaustible charity of Elizabeth was again at hand. "In the city of Eisenach, at the foot of the Wartburg, she founded an hospital of twenty beds, for poor women only; and another, called the Hospital of St. Anne, in which all the sick and poor who presented themselves were received; and Elizabeth herself went from one to the other, ministering to the wretched inmates with a cheerful countenance, although the sights of misery and disease were often so painful and so disgusting that the ladies who attended upon her turned away their heads, and murmured and complained of the task assigned to them.