"See here," said the curé, taking something from the pocket of his wide-skirted coat. "I have long meant this for you, ever since the time you were with me, but you could not have taken it with you in your wanderings." He took out of a box a small neatly-carved image of a saint with a little pedestal of wood. "See, this is your patron saint, the holy Wallburga. Do you remember what I said to you about hard and soft wood, and about the good God who can carve a saint out of a knotty stick?" "Yes, yes," said Wally. "Well, you see, in order that you may not forget it, I have had a little image brought for me from Sölden. Hang it up over your bed, and pray before it diligently--that will do you good." "I thank your reverence very much," said Wally, evidently delighted, as she took the fragile object carefully in her hard hands. "I will be sure always to remember when I look at it, how well you explained the meaning of it all to me. And this is how the holy Wallburga looked! Oh, she must indeed have been a sweet and lovely woman; but who could be so good and so pious as that?" And as Klettenmaier came towards her across the courtyard, she held the figure out to him and cried, "See, Klettenmaier, what I have had given me; it is the holy Wallburga, my patron saint. We will send his reverence the first fine lamb that is dropped, as a present." The good priest put in a sincere protest against this kind of return, but Wally, in her pleasure, paid no heed. When the curé was gone, she went into her room and nailed the carved figure with the sacred images over her bed, and all round, like a wreath, she placed the pack of cards that had been old Luckard's. Then she went to see what there was to do in the farm or in the house. "Hansl," she cried as she passed the vulture who was perched on the wood-shed, "_we_ are the masters now!" And the sense of mastery after her long servitude pervaded her whole being, as intoxicating wine drunk in deep draughts fills the veins of an exhausted man. In the courtyard the servants hired by Vincenz were all assembled, and Vincenz himself was amongst them. He had grown haggard, his face was of a yellow paleness, and on the back of his head in the midst of his thick black hair he had a bald place like a tonsure; his glaring eyes lay deep in their sockets, like the eyes of a wolf lurking in a crevice for his prey. "What is it?" asked Wally, standing still. The upper servant, erewhile so rude, approached with timid subserviency. "We only wished to ask thee if thou's meaning to send us away because we treated thee so badly while the master was alive? Thou knows we could only do what he would have done." "You did only your duty," said Wally quietly. "I send none away unless I find him dishonest or a bad servant. And if you left off bowing and bending before me, you'd please me better. Go to your work that I may see what you can do, that's better worth than fooleries."