At last her husband saw that she was seriously ill, and he requested the minister of Erlenbrunn to come and see her. The good old man visited her frequently and talked to her affectionately, in order to induce her to repent of her sins, and to detach her heart from the things of this earth, that she might turn to God. But this advice made her very angry. She looked at the good man with utter astonishment. "I do not know," she said, "for what purpose the minister comes to preach repentance to me. He should have delivered such a sermon to the merchant who stole our money. Yes, there would have been some sense in that. As for me, I do not see that I have any reason for repentance. As long as I was able to go out I always went to church, and I have never failed to say my prayers. I have not ceased all my life to do my duty and to behave myself like a virtuous housewife. I defy any living soul to slander me. And of all the poor people who have come to my door, not one can complain that I sent them away without giving them something. Now, I should like to know how any one can behave better!" The venerable pastor saw that she was justifying herself before God, and he tried by adopting a more direct tone to lead her to contrition. He showed to her that she loved money more than anything else in the world, and that the love of money was idolatry. He showed her that the bursts of anger in which she had indulged were heinous sins before God, that she had totally failed in the most beautiful of all Christian virtues--filial affection; that by her greed of money she had made her husband unhappy, cruelly driven away the poor orphan Mary, and even turned away her husband's parents, those whom she ought to have cherished as if they were her own. He showed her also that, with a fortune like hers, a little piece of bread given to a poor man to get rid of him did not fulfil the duties which God expected of her, that in spite of all her boasting of going to church she was none the better of it, for her prayers had come from a heart unwarmed by love, and could not ascend to the throne of God. In this faithful way did he talk to her, but only with the result of making her burst into a fit of passionate sobbing. The illness from which she suffered was a long and trying one. She spent whole nights in coughing, and yet the ruling passion of avarice was so strong that she would scarcely take sufficient nourishment to sustain her. No consoling thought came to her to mitigate her suffering. She was utterly unwilling to resign herself to God and to submit to His will. The good minister tried in every imaginable way to bring her to a better frame of mind. During the last days of her life she was occasionally a little softened in her manners, but she never evinced any true repentance. In the flower of her age she died, a sad instance of the effects of avarice, passion, and love of the world. CHAPTER XX. FORGIVING AN ENEMY.