The pious but love-sick sister Ingrid, this Vadstene’s Heloise, writes to her heart’s beloved, Axel Nilsun—­for the chronicles have preserved it for us:—­

“Broderne og Systarne leka paa Spil, drikke Vin och dansa med hvarandra i Tradgarden!”

(The brothers and sisters amuse themselves in play, drink wine and dance with one another in the garden).

These words may explain to us the history of the pear-tree:  one is led to think of the orgies of the nun-phantoms in “Robert le Diable,” the daughters of sin on consecrated ground.  But “judge not, lest ye be judged,” said the purest and best of men that was born of woman.  We will read Sister Ingrid’s letter, sent secretly to him she truly loved.  In it lies the history of many, clear and human to us:—­

“Jag djerfues for ingen utan for dig allena bekaenna, att jag formar ilia anda mit Ave Maria eller laesa mit Paternoster, utan du kommer mig ichagen.  Ja i sjelfa messen kommer mig fore dit taeckleliga Ansigte och vart karliga omgange.  Jag tycker jag kan icke skifta mig for n genann an Menniska, jungfru Maria, St. Birgitta och himmelens Haerskaror skalla kanske straffe mig harfar?  Men du vet det val, hjertans kaeraste att jag med fri vilja och uppsaet aldrig dissa reglar samtykt.  Mine foraeldrer hafva vael min kropp i dette fangelset insatt, men hjertaet kan intet sa snart fran verlden ater kalles!”

(I dare not confess to any other than to thee, that I am not able to repeat my Ave Maria or read my Paternoster, without calling thee to mind.  Nay, even in the mass itself thy comely face appears, and our affectionate intercourse recurs to me.  It seems to me that I cannot confess to any other human being—­the Virgin Mary, St. Bridget, and the whole host of heaven will perhaps punish me for it.  But thou knowest well, my heart’s beloved, that I have never consented with my free-will to these rules.  My parents, it is true, have placed my body in this prison, but the heart cannot so soon be weaned from the world).

How touching is the distress of young hearts!  It offers itself to us from the mouldy parchment, it resounds in old songs.  Beg the grey-haired old dame in the grass turf-house to sing to thee of the young, heavy sorrow, of the saving angel—­and the angel came in many shapes.  You will hear the song of the cloister robbery; of Herr Carl who was sick to death; when the young nun entered the corpse chamber, sat down by his feet and whispered how sincerely she had loved him, and the knight rose from his bier and bore her away to marriage and pleasure in Copenhagen.  And all the nuns of the cloister sang:  “Christ grant that such an angel were to come, and take both me and thee!”