Even the pastor, who had been unable to forgive her for not appearing at his church and having even chosen as her only intimate friend a renegade theologian, whom he could not help doubly condemning--even this zealous shepherd of souls could not permanently refuse her his esteem. After the concert he called on her, and had a conversation which lasted two hours. I met him just as he was leaving the almshouse. His face looked as I imagine Moses' might have done after he had seen the Lord in the naming bush. I did not even consider this strange. What victory over human hearts might I not have expected this woman to achieve! The "overflowing treasure of grace" she so lavishly bestowed benefited me also. For the first time, my modest greeting to the secretly resentful man was returned with a friendly gesture, in which I fancied I noticed a shade of curious interest. We afterward became better acquainted, and learned to sincerely value each other. My position as the Canoness's special friend was of course much envied by my colleagues and other acquaintances, and many questions were asked about her. But, as I had no intimacies, I was not obliged to put any unusual bolts on my heart, that it might keep its secrets. And I must add one thing more which, amid such narrow, provincial environments, does the highest honor to human nature: never, by even the most trivial jest, was the slightest shadow cast upon the purity of my intercourse with her. Nay, a still more extraordinary thing: even the most arrogant among the wives of the dignitaries willingly yielded her the precedence she never claimed, and without envy or hatred beheld this stranger, who had been received into the almshouse from Christian charity, ruling the city as it were from her little room--at least, in all matters relating to the common welfare of the inhabitants and their intellectual life. Even the burgomaster's wife and her friends, who gathered at society meetings and coffee-parties, did not consider it beneath their dignity to seek the Canoness's advice on any charitable business, or any question concerning education or etiquette, with a faith as devout as if the almshouse were the oracle of Delphi, and Frau Luise sat on the tripod as priestess. She told me the drollest stories about these occasions, which I, as a faithful servant of the temple, vowed to silence, must not betray here. Thus the renown of her talents and virtues could not fail to extend beyond the precincts of our little town, till at last even the newspapers mentioned her. She took no notice of it; indeed, she did not look at the papers, now that the advertisements no longer interested her. I think she secretly dreaded to accidentally read the name of the man whom she desired to forever forget.