Frau Margareta Rindsfüsser crossed herself piously. “Intercede for us, Sacred Coat, for forgiveness for our sins--Why, girl, how stupid you are! Down there in Trier the bells are ringing day and night, they are ringing until the fish in the Moselle take fright. You’d think you could hear the dingdonging even up here. And people come from all over the world, up along the Moselle, with crosses and banners, and they sing, they pray to the Sacred Coat. My father’s brother’s son, Stadtfeld’s Hanni, he’s been there. He told me about it. He didn’t have no children, so he went down there and touched the Sacred Coat with his wedding ring; that helped. The priests in the Holy Cathedral, they showed the Coat, and whoever is sick gets well again. And if any one has somebody sick at home, and takes something belonging to them with him, a shirt, or a kerchief, or anything, the sick one will get well again.” “O blessed Lord Jesus!” the girl clasped her hands as if in prayer. “Mother, I’ll go there.” “It’s too far.” The sick woman sighed, half anxiously, half longingly. “I can’t let you. You are my only child--Something might happen. Jesus, Maria, Joseph!” “Oh, mother, let me go. I’ve been down as far as the Moselle with berries, and it’s just going a little further; I can find Trier so easy. And if I pray many thousand times to the Sacred Coat, then it will surely help. And when I come back again, then you’re all well. Oh, mother, just think!” The girl caught the sick woman in her arms with a laugh of joy. She pressed a fresh, blooming cheek to her mother’s pale, hollow face. “Mother, say yes. I’ll go down to pray to the Sacred Coat. I’ll go to-morrow.” “Anna, let her go, in God’s name, and the Holy Virgin will be with her,” said the visitor. “I’ll come up every day to look after the goat--and to look after you.” And she took her departure, much touched. When evening came, Margret milked the goat and got the supper. Then she stood at the well and scrubbed herself as if she had not seen water for a week. The Sacred Coat could indeed demand that one should be clean and bright from head to foot. Then she went into the house and knelt before the picture of the Virgin, which looked down, gay with many colors, from out of its little gold frame on the whitewashed wall. Her prayer was long and heart-felt. It was not only the Paternoster and the Ave that she prayed to-day--her tension, her expectations, and secret anxieties for the coming day brought words of her own in entreaty to her lips. Then she sank down exhausted on her bed. Her hands folded over her breast, she was soon breathing the deep, regular breath of sweet, youthful sleep. When she awoke, day was breaking already, and the sun was shaking itself out of its morning dreams behind rose-tipped clouds. It was high time to set out.