The widow silently drew Katterle into the dark, narrow entry, shut the door, and led her into a neat, gaily ornamented room.  A lamp which was still burning hung from the ceiling, but Frau Ratzer raised the tallow candle she had carried to the door, threw its light upon her face, and nodded approvingly.  Katterle was a pretty girl, and the flush of shame which crimsoned her cheeks was very becoming.  The widow probably thought so, too, for she stroked them with her fat hand, promising, as she did so, to receive her and let her want for nothing if she proved an obedient little daughter.  Then she pinched the girl’s arm with the tips of her fingers so sharply that she shrank back and timidly told the woman what had brought her there, saying that she was and intended to remain a respectable girl, and had sought shelter with Frau Ratzer because she knew what a sore disgrace she had suffered for the same fault which had driven her from home.

But the widow, starting as if stung by a scorpion, denounced Katterle as an impudent hussy, who rightfully belonged in the stocks, to which the base injustice of the money-bags in the court had condemned her.  There was no room in her clean house for anyone who reminded her of this outrage and believed that she had really committed so shameful an act.  Then, seizing the maid by the shoulders, she pushed her into the street.

Meanwhile it had grown light.  The sun had just risen in the east above the square of St. Lawrence and spread a golden fan of rays over the azure sky.  The radiant spectacle did not escape the eyes of the frightened girl, and she rejoiced because it gave her the assurance that the terrifying darkness of the night was over.

How fresh the morning was, how clear and beautiful the light of the young day!  And it shone not only on the great and the good, but on the lowly, the poor, and the wicked.  Even for the horrible woman within the sky adorned itself with the exquisite blue and glorious brilliancy.

Uttering a sigh of relief she soon reached the Church of St. Lawrence, which the old sexton was just opening.  She was the first person who entered the stately house of God that morning and knelt in one of the pews to pray.

This had been the right thing for her to do.  Dear Lord!  Where was there any maid in greater trouble, yet Heaven had preserved her from the death on a red-hot gridiron which had rendered St. Lawrence, whose name the church bore, a blessed martyr.  Compared with that, even standing in the pillory was not specially grievous.  So she poured out her whole soul to the saint, confessing everything which grieved and oppressed her, until the early mass began.  She had even confided to him that she was from Sarnen in Switzerland, and had neither friend nor countryman here in Nuremberg save her lover, the true and steadfast Biberli.  Yet no!  There was one person from her home who probably would do her a kindness, the wife of the gatekeeper in the von Zollern castle, a native of Berne, who had come to Nuremberg and the fortress as the maid of the Countess Elizabeth of Hapsburg, the present Burgravine.  This excellent woman could give her better counsel than any one, and she certainly owed the recollection of Frau Gertrude to her patron saint.