Not that the astute priest began at once with the matter in hand, on which Herr Andreas had already most amply coached him. He was far too wise and politic a fisher of souls for so clumsy a procedure. He angled gently. He started on his task by striking, first, all the familiar home chords of St Valentin. The moment he entered the room, indeed, Linnet rushed up and seized his hand—she had known him from her childhood, and taken the mass from him often; she had confessed to him her sins, and received time and again his paternal blessing. At such a moment as that any old friend from St Valentin would have been a welcome counsellor: how much more then the Herr Vicar, who had taught her the Credo, and the Vater Unser, and the Ave; who had prepared her lisping lips for First Communion; who had absolved her from her sins from her babyhood onward! And he had seen that dear mother only the day before! How she flooded him with questions as to everyone at St Valentin. The Herr Vicar, in reply, folding two plump hands over his capacious waistband, sank back in an easy-chair, and answered her at full length as to all that had happened since she left the village. The good mother was well, very well indeed, seldom better in November; some holy oil rubbed on night and morning, had proved highly effectual against her threatened rheumatism. Oh yes; she had duly received the five florins that Linnet sent her—thanks very much for them—and had expended two of them, as Linnet would no doubt herself have wished, in the performance of a mass for the deliverance of the dear father’s soul from purgatory. She knew the Herr Vicar was coming to Meran, and would see her daughter, and she had sent many messages (all detailed at full length)—how the cow with the crooked horn was giving no milk, and how the cat had five kittens, and how pleased they all were to hear at St Valentin there was talk Linnet was to make such a brilliant marriage. Then poor Linnet faltered out, half-sobbing again, when the Herr Vicar spoke of that mass for the repose of her father’s soul, how great a trial it had been to her to be away from St Valentin for the first time in her life on All Souls Day—the Feast of the Dead—when it had always been her custom to lay a little wreath, and burn four small tapers on her father’s grave in the village churchyard. She was afraid that dear spirit in its present home would feel itself neglected by the duty unperformed in due season. But the Herr Vicar, with a benign smile, was happy he should be able to reassure her as to this matter. The candles and the wreath had been forthcoming as usual; he had seen to them himself—at Herr Andreas’s request, who had written to him on the subject from Meran most thoughtfully.