Rex tremendae Majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, Fons Pietatis! What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in the moonlight? "I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter. "He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer, but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven him from the piano. Salva me, Fons Pietatis! CHAPTER XII. PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL. Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening. The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under constraint in the midst of this very select audience. Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back. He went to town this afternoon." "When will he come?" asked the minister. "Some time to-morrow--toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven, unless he is detained." "We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval. He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour ourselves." "Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course: let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from--from the corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it even as it would have been observed." The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be. It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church more than she has? I am sure it is what--what _everybody_ must see is the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we were all beside ourselves--we didn't know what to think or what to do." "Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly after his wife had concluded her animated speech. "I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise. "Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if we don't, and we can't change that."