“And this time you, and the other Berthold, were the leaders,” cried Fran Christine, hastily pressing a kiss upon her old husband’s cheek behind the curtain.

Then she turned back into the dusky chamber, pointed to the open door of the sitting-room, and said, “just look!  If that isn’t——­There comes Ursula Vorchtel with her betrothed husband, young Hans Nutzel!  What a fine-looking man the slender youth has become!  Ursel—­her visit is probably the greatest pleasure which Els has had during this blessed hour.”

The wise woman was right; for when Ursel held out her hands to her former friend, whom she had studiously avoided so long, the eyes of both girls were moist, and Els’s cheeks alternately flushed and paled, like the play of light and shadow on the ground upon a sunny morning in a leafy wood when the wind sways the tree tops.

What did they not have to say to each other!  As soon as they were unnoticed a moment Ursel kissed her newly regained friend, and whispered, pointing to her lover, with whom Fran Barbara Behaim was talking:  “He first taught me to know what true love is, and since then I have realised that it was wrong and foolish for me to be angry with you, my dear Els, and that Wolff did right to keep his troth, hard as his family made it for him to do so.  Had my Hans met me a little sooner, we should not now have to mourn our poor Ulrich.  I know—­for I have tried often enough to soothe his resentment—­how greatly he incensed your lover.  Oh, how sad it all is!  But your aunt, the abbess, was right when she told us before our confirmation, ’When the cross that is imposed upon us weighs too heavily, an angel often comes, lifts it, and twines it with lovely roses!’ That has been my experience, dear Els; and what great injustice I did you when I kept out of your way so meanly!  I always felt drawn to you.  But when that evil gossip began I turned against them all and bade them be silent in my presence, for it was all false, base lies.  I upheld your Eva, too, as well as you, though she had been very ungracious whenever we met.”

How joyously Els opened her heart to these confessions!  How warmly she interceded for her sister!  The girls had passed their arms around each other, as if they had returned to the days of their childhood, and when Ursel’s lover glanced at his betrothed bride, who, spite of her well-formed figure and pleasant face, could not be classed amongst the most beautiful of women, he thought she might compare in attractiveness with the loveliest maidens, but no one could equal her in kindness of heart.  She saw this in the warm, loving look with which he sought her pleasant grey eyes, as he approached to remind her that it was time to go; but beckoning to him, she begged him to wait just a moment longer, which she employed in whispering to Els:  “You should find shelter with us, and no one else, if my father——­Don’t think he refused to let me invite you on account of poor Ulrich, or because he was angry with you.  It’s only because——­After the session to-day they all praised his noble heart, and I don’t know what else, so loudly and with such exaggeration that it was too much to believe.  If he interceded for the Eysvogel firm and you poor children, it was only because, as a just man, he could not do otherwise.”