Had she been a man, I would have felled her to the floor with my knotted fist; as it was, I simply bit my tongue for an instant, then asked in a voice that possibly shook a little, “Whether the Lady Ilsa was now exceeding happy in her new life?” “She is happy with that happiness which the world cannot give. Our Holy Mother the Church has received her into her bosom. She is possessed by a peace and joy which I fear you, Sir Graf, can never know.” I was tempted to question the abbess touching her opinion of Luther. It would have provoked a lively volley. But _cui bono_? He who argues with a woman has surely one arm tied. I only bowed again, very low, and wished her Ladyship a restful night. It was still too early to think of retiring myself, and I amused myself in the great room of the inn with a bottle of tolerable Hochheimer, and reading “The Soul’s Vegetable Garden,” by Dietrich Koelds, a little book of pious meditation, much in acceptance in North Germany,--not very brisk company, but all I could find, and better than my own unruly thoughts. I was just yawning for the seventh time, when I saw a woman standing before me, a young peasant woman, with a comely blond face. I recognized her as one of the lay servitors of the abbess. “Sir,” she asked, “are you the Graf von Regenstein?” I nodded. “Then, sir,” with a quick look about (the room was now nearly empty), “will you graciously listen to me, if I tell you somewhat of Sister Ilsa?” I fear I almost dropped the book, my lips surely twitched when I bade her, “Say on.” “Oh! Sir Graf, she is most miserable and unhappy.” “Why do you come to tell me that?” “You do not understand. I am Trude, the daughter of that Gunter of the Brook, whose life your Lordship spared. He went to me on your behalf, but ere his return to the Regenstein your Lordship had departed. Now I will tell you.” “Do you know this ‘Sister’ Ilsa?” I asked, eying her keenly. “Well indeed. She has little to do with most of the nuns and serving women, but one day I ran a knife into my hand while in the kitchen. It was most terrible. She bandaged and nursed me. The rest neglected ‘the outlaw’s daughter.’ She did not. Oh! her heart is tender and good as Our Blessed Lady’s. Once I asked her why she, the abbess’s niece and perhaps abbess herself some day, was so kindly to me, a poor wench, whose father was disgraced. ‘Ah! Trude,’ said she, with a laugh I did not like, ‘I shall never be abbess of Quedlinburg. I am not a saint like Aunt Theckla. Sometimes I think I have no vocation. That being so, I try to be as kind as I can to everybody, just to stop thinking.’ Your Lordship attends and is interested?” “I am interested. Go on. Tell only the truth, however, or your father, and you, too, are forever undone.”