THE CELL OF EBERHARD.
A mother, being provoked, said to her unoffending child, “Go off to the devil!” The poor girl, frightened, wandered into the woods, then covered with snow.
Soon the mother, growing calm, became anxious about her child, and sought her everywhere, but she could not be found: lamenting, she wept all night.
At daybreak she arose, and induced her neighbours to join her in her search; but no tracks were found in the freshly-fallen snow.
The mother then sought Eberhard’s Cell, and wept and prayed till four days and nights had passed. She now requested the priest to say a mass for her lost child. No sooner had the priest raised the Host on high, than a tender voice sounding from the forest said, “Your little girl yet lives.”
Out sprang the mother, and there, beneath the trees, she found her little daughter, a nosegay of summer flowers in one hand and a green twig in the other. With tears of joy the mother clasped her, and asked her how she had been preserved.
“Dear mother,” replied the child, “has always been with me. Dear mother carried a light, and with her ran a little dog, white as the snow, and so faithful and kind.”
Then the mother perceived that the Virgin had guarded her child; and she led the little girl into Eberhard’s Cell, where they offered the wreath at the Virgin’s shrine.
Still blossoms the wreath, embalmed by love and thankful prayer.