With Eva’s hand clasped in hers, and supported by Els, the abbess died peacefully, rich in beautiful hopes.  How often she had described such an end to her pupil as the fairest reward for the sacrifices in which convent life was so rich!  But the memory of her mother’s decease had brought to Eva, while in Schweinau, the firm conviction that dwellers in the world were also permitted to find a similar end.  The Saviour Himself had promised the crown of eternal life to those who were faithful unto death, and she and her husband maintained inviolable fidelity to the Saviour, to each other, and to every duty which religion, law, and love commanded them to fulfil.  Therefore, why should they not be permitted to die as happily and confidently as her aunt, the abbess?

Her life was rich in happiness, and though Heinz Schorlin as a husband and father, as the brave and loyal liegeman of his Emperor, and the prudent manager of his estate, regained his former light-heartedness, and taught his wife to share it, both never forgot the painful conflict by which they had won each other.

When Eva passed the village forge and saw the smith draw the glowing iron from the fire and, with heavy hammer strokes, fashion it upon the anvil as he desired, she often remembered the grievous days after her mother’s death, which had made the “little saint”—­she did not admit it herself, but the whole Swabian nobility agreed in the opinion—­the most faithful of wives and mothers, the Providence of the poor, the zealous promoter of goodness, the most simply attired of noblewomen far and near, yet the most aristocratic and distinguished in her appearance of them all.

Hand in hand with her husband she devoted the most faithful care to their children, and if Biberli, the castellan of the castle, and Katterle his wife, who had remained childless, were too ready to read the wishes of their darlings in their eyes, she exclaimed warningly to the loyal old friend, “The fire of the forge!” He and Katterle knew what she meant, for the ex-schoolmaster had explained it in the best possible way to his docile wife.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

His sole effort had seemed to be to interfere with no one
No virtue which can be owned like a house or a steed
Retreat behind the high-sounding words “justice and law”
Strongest of all educational powers—­sorrow and love
Usually found the worst wine in the taverns with showy signs

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