“Where else?” asked Eva angrily.  “I never met him except there.  What do you other girls talk about at such entertainments, if it surprises you?  Besides, St. Francis was by no means our only subject; we spoke of the future crusade, too.  And oh!—­you may believe me—­we would have been glad to talk of such things for hours.  He knew many things about our saint; but the precise one which makes him especially great and lovable, and withal so powerful that he attracted all whom he deemed worthy to follow him, he had not understood, and I was permitted to be the first person to bring it clearly before his mind.  Ah! and his wit is as keen as his sword, and his heart is as open to all that is noble and sacred as it is loyal to his lord and Emperor.  If we meet again I shall win him for the white cross on the black mantle and the battle against the enemies of the faith.”

“But, Eva,” interrupted her sister, still under the spell of astonishment, “such conversation amid the merry music of the pipers!”

“’Wherever three Christians meet, even though they are only laymen, there is a church,’ says Tertullian,” Eva answered impressively.  “One need not go to the house of God to talk about the things which ought to be the highest and dearest to every one; and Heinz Schorlin—­I know it from his own lips—­is of the same opinion, for he told me voluntarily that he would never forget the few hours which we had enjoyed together.”

“Indeed!” said her sister thoughtfully.  “But whether he does not owe this pleasure more to the dancing than to the edifying conversation——­”

“Certainly not!” replied Eva, very positively.  “I can prove it, too; for later, after he had heard many things about St. Clare, the female counterpart of Francis, he vowed to make her his patron saint.  Or do you suppose that a knight changes his saints, as he does his doublet and coat of mail, without having any great and powerful motive?  Do you think it possible that the idle pleasure of the dance led him to so important a decision?”

“Certainly not.  Nothing led him to it except the irresistible zeal of my devout sister,” answered Els, smiling, as she continued to comb her fair hair.  “She spoke with tongues in the ballroom, as the apostles did at Pentecost, and thus our ‘little saint’ performed her first miracle:  the conversion of a godless knight during the dancing.”

“Call it so, if you choose,” replied Eva, her red lips pouting scornfully, as if she felt raised above such pitiful derision.  “How you hurt, Els!  You are pulling all the hair out of my head!”

The object of this rebuke had used the comb with the utmost care, but the great luxuriance of the long, fair, waving locks had presented many an impediment, and Eva seemed unusually sensitive that night.  Els thought she knew why, and made no answer to the unjust charge.  She knew her sister; and as she wound the braids about her head, and then, in the maid’s place, hung part of her finery on hooks, and laid part carefully in the chest, she asked her numerous questions about the dance, but was vouchsafed only monosyllabic replies.