“That was some time since. We have grown even closer friends now, more than perhaps is fitting, seeing I am peasant and she a great lady; but she would have it so. The nuns complain she has little to do with most of them. She takes no interest in distilling medicines or in their endless needle work. She almost never complains herself, but oh! my Lord Graf, she is most unhappy. Once she made to me a kind of confession.” “What was it?” “Once she said, ‘Trude, no one should ever enter the convent unless she is very sure of her vocation. I know a nun here in Quedlinburg, who took the vows to ransom her father’s soul, he being dead, and her lover’s, he being still alive, but very sinful. Now she knows it is no prayer nor deed of hers that can ever avail for either, but only the loving mercy of God. She has no vocation for the convent; but the vows are taken. Pray God, Trude, there be not many other women in her state.’” “This is indeed sad, my lass,” I said, I hope with well affected indifference, “but whence came this strange notion of hers that it is ‘the mercy of God’ which alone will save a soul? Surely the nuns are not taught that?” “I am not sure, Sir,” she answered, “but I think Sister Ilsa has bought some of Dr. Luther’s books when she has gone down to the market in Quedlinburg. Once I saw her with a printed pamphlet. She hid it in her dress very quickly when an old nun passed by, and whispered ‘She must not see that, Trude, or Aunt Theckla will rage terribly.’” “The nuns have been forbidden to read Dr. Luther’s books, then?” I inquired. “Of course, by the abbess; but all the younger nuns are reading them. They hardly dare to confess it one to another, much less to the chaplain. They say Luther writes wonderfully well, although the abbess says ‘his inspiration is of the devil.’ But I am only a poor, unlettered girl, and cannot judge.” Here the clock thundered out a late hour, and I told Trude to depart, first putting three silver gulden in her hand, and promising her as many more if I could see her again very early in the morning, before her mistress set forth for Hanover. As for myself, I tossed on my feather beds all night. “She has no vocation for the convent, but the vows are taken.” The trumpeters of hell seemed dinning the words through my head unceasingly. CHAPTER XXIV I PLAY WITH FIRE