Girls and gold are the softer the purer they are.
—Jean Paul Richter.
The beautiful flowers that grew down in the meadow where we laid our Brother Agonius in his chamber of rest, like him were soon gathered up into the arms of the Master Reaper. The enchantments of the long, hot, summer days had worked silently but surely the entrancing spells that now spread over field and forest the glowing vestments of the early fall.
But one day as I was resting at the foot of the venerable oak where Brother Martin had been hastened to his death by that strange woman not many years before, suddenly I heard a piercing shriek from the thick woods back of me and a wild, terrified rush toward the little clearing where I was standing erect, fairly astounded. In a moment more Sister Bernice fell almost headlong at my feet, whence I lifted her unconscious with fright and terror into my arms.
Hardly knowing what to do I stood there helplessly gazing at her sweet face and then at the crown of hair that lay like a golden fleece over my arm, her hood having fallen to the ground, so that I was thankful some remnant of womanly vanity had saved her from the hideous tonsure. But I bethought myself to lay her gently on the ground, her head, a dear burden, in my lap, fanning her face as best I might with my large, toil-stained hands. At last the fluttering eyelids and the gasping breath told me of returning consciousness. At first she opened her eyes and gazed at me wonderingly, vaguely, and once she closed them as if to shut out some awful sight. I rubbed her hands, her wrists, softly smoothed her brow, and spake to her gently, "'Tis naught but Brother Jabez; thou needst not fear him. What hath he done?" and by such soft entreaties and with tender pressures of the hands I sought to soothe her to herself again.
Finally, she sat up weakly, but leaning so sweetly and helplessly against me—it being necessary to hold her safe with mine arms for great fear she might faint again—that I longed to sit there forever. She, however, after a while freed herself somewhat from my too careful protection and said "Nay, my dear sister, my—Bernice, I never had much faith in such wild tales," said I, as she lifted those clear, trusting eyes to mine. And may I be forgiven for this unblushing, unscrupulous lie; for did I not know of the witch of Endor? Many a tale had I heard in the Vaterland of the malign influences of the evil eye, so that now I felt a vague dread I dared not make known to my poor little sister, who had flown to my arms as a birdling to its nest.
"In a moment more Sister Bernice
fell almost headlong at my feet."
Page 128.