“On the surface, at first, the tale is one for the nursery, but beneath is deep and earnest purpose, the enforcement of the distinction between the essential goodness of loving and unselfish innocence, delighting in service, and the hard and cruel Pharisaism of a narrow, egoistic bigotry. Presently the parable illustrates the savagery which perfect innocence may experience at the hands of arrogant and sophisticated virtue. But a brief outline will most clearly show the motive of Mr. Knoblauch’s story. The scene is laid in a convent in France, during the Franco-German conflict of 1870. _Marie-Odile_, the embodiment of childish innocence, is virtually the servant of the sisterhood. As an infant she had been found on the door-step. Now she is serving her novitiate and doing the domestic work, until ready for the final vows. She is a bright, affectionate, devout, and indefatigable little creature, who has never been outside the convent walls, has never seen a man--except an old priest and a decrepit, half-witted gardener--and is absolutely ignorant of the world and the ways of life. She has been taught that babies are the rewards which kindly angels bring from heaven to deserving mothers. By the _Mother Superior_, a martinet and zealot, she is persistently bullied. Even her tenderness for her pet pigeon is accounted a mortal sin, and, by way of spiritual discipline, she is ordered to tell the gardener to kill it for the _Mother Superior’s_ table. At this she revolts. Sooner than obey she hides herself, and is not to be found when the terrible news arrives that the French have been hopelessly beaten, and that the _Uhlans_ are at the convent door. The priests and the nuns flee and _Marie-Odile_ and the old gardener are left behind alone. Soon the first German, a handsome young corporal, arrives, and _Marie-Odile_, who has never seen a male figure of such splendor before, concludes that he is Saint Michael--the convent’s patron saint--and kneels to him in rapturous worship. Other soldiers come in, led by a rough sergeant, and are disposed to take liberties, but are promptly disarmed by her fearlessness, her simplicity, and her transparent innocence. They even affect to respect the laws of the _Mother Superior_, which she quotes as paramount. She feeds them, presides at their table, and holds them in subjection--all but one or two--by magic of the ignorance that knows no wrong. The corporal champions her against the advances of his more brutal fellows, and to him she appeals with the confidence of a child. When the troops depart the sergeant, learning that the corporal has never had a love affair of any kind, purposely leaves him behind, bidding him take advantage of his manifest opportunity.