The old magistrate and his wife, on the contrary, thought that they knew.  They had helped the sisters to receive the first callers; but when Frau Barbara Behaim, a cousin of the late Frau Maria, had appeared, they gave up their post to her, and slipped quietly into the next room to escape the throng.

There they retired to the niche formed by the deep walls of the broad central window of the house, and Herr Berthold Pfinzing whispered to his wife:  “There was too much philanthropy and kindness for me in there.  A great deal of honey at once cloys me.  But you, prophetess, foresaw what is now occurring, and I, too, scarcely expected anything different.  So long as one still has a doublet left compassion is in no haste, but when the last shirt is stripped from the body charity—­thank the saints!—­moves faster.  We are most ready to help those who, we feel very sure, are suffering more than they deserve.  There are many motherless children; but young girls who have lost both parents, exposed to every injustice——­”

“Are certainly rare birds,” his wife interrupted, “and this will undoubtedly be of service to the children.  But if they are now invited to the houses of the same worthy folk who, a few hours ago, thought themselves too good to attend the funeral of their admirable mother, and anxiously kept their own little daughters away from them, they probably owe it especially to the right mediators, noble old Vorchtel and another.”

“To-day, if ever, certainly furnished evidence how heavily the testimony and example of a really estimable man weighs on the scale.  The First Losunger interceded for the children as if they were his own daughters, attacked the slanderers, and of course I didn’t leave him in the lurch.”

“Peter Holzschuher declared that you defended them like the Roman Cicero,” cried Frau Christine merrily.  “But don’t be vexed, dear husband; no matter how heavily the influence of the two Bertholds—­Vorchtel’s and yours—­weighed in the balance, nay, had that of a third and a fourth of the best Councillors been added, what is now taking place before our eyes and ears would not have happened, if—–­”

“Well?” asked the magistrate eagerly.

“If,” replied the matron in a tone of the firmest conviction, “they had not all been far from believing, even for a moment, in their inmost souls the shameful calumny which baseness dared to cast upon those two—­just look more closely.”

“Yet if that was really the case—­” her husband began to object, but she eagerly continued:  “Many did not utter their better knowledge or faith because the evil heart believes in wickedness rather than virtue, especially if their own house contains something—­we will say a young daughter—­whose shining purity is thereby brought into a clearer light.  Besides, we ourselves have often been vexed by—­let us do honour to the truth!—­by the defiant manner in which your devout godchild—­yonder ’little saint’—­held aloof in her spiritual arrogance from the companions of her own age——­”