“Thou dear Heaven!  Is it possible!  Did you never hear of the Christ of Andernach?”

Flemming answered in the negative.

“Thou dear Heaven!” continued the old woman.  “It is a very wonderful story; and a true one, as every good Christian in Andernach will tell you.  And it all happened before the deathof my blessed man, four years ago, let me see,—­yes, four years ago, come Christmas.”

Here the old woman stopped speaking, but went on with her knitting.  Other thoughts seemed to occupy her mind.  She was thinking, no doubt, of her blessed man, as German widows call their dead husbands.  But Flemming having expressed an ardent wish to hear the wonderful story, she told it, in nearly the following words.

“There was once a poor old woman in Andernach whose name was Frau Martha, and she lived all alone in a house by herself, and loved all the Saints and the blessed Virgin, and was as good as an angel, and sold pies down by the Rheinkrahn.  But her house was very old, and the roof-tiles were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones, and the rain kept coming in, and no Christian soul in Andernach would help her.  But the Frau Martha was a good woman, and never did anybody any harm, but went to mass every morning, and sold pies by the Rheinkrahn.  Now one dark, windy night, when all the good Christians in Andernachwere abed and asleep in the feathers, Frau Martha, who slept under the roof, heard a great noise over her head, and in her chamber, drip! drip! drip! as if the rain were dropping down through the broken tiles.  Dear soul! and sure enough it was.  And then there was a pounding and hammering overhead, as if somebody were at work on the roof; and she thought it was Pelz-Nickel tearing the tiles off, because she had not been to confession often enough.  So she began to pray; and the faster she said her Pater-noster and her Ave-Maria, the faster Pelz-Nickel pounded and pulled; and drip! drip! drip! it went all round her in the dark chamber, till the poor woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to the window to call for help.  Then in a moment all was still,—­death-still.  But she saw a light streaming through the mist and rain, and a great shadow on the house opposite.  And then somebody came down from the top of her house by a ladder, and had a lantern in his hand; and he took the ladder on his shoulder and went down thestreet.  But she could not see clearly, because the window was streaked with rain.  And in the morning the old broken tiles were found scattered about the street, and there were new ones on the roof, and the old house has never leaked to this blessed day.