The Basket of Flowers

by Christoph von Schmid

The venerable pastor saw that she was justifying herself before God, and he tried by adopting a more direct tone to lead her to contrition. He showed to her that she loved money more than anything else in the world, and that the love of money was idolatry. He showed her that the bursts of anger in which she had indulged were heinous sins before God, that she had totally failed in the most beautiful of all Christian virtues—filial affection; that by her greed of money she had made her husband unhappy, cruelly driven away the poor orphan Mary, and even turned away her husband's parents, those whom she ought to have cherished as if they were her own.

He showed her also that, with a fortune like hers, a little piece of bread given to a poor man to get rid of him did not fulfil the duties which God expected of her, that in spite of all her boasting of going to church she was none the better of it, for her prayers had come from a heart unwarmed by love, and could not ascend to the throne of God. In this faithful way did he talk to her, but only with the result of making her burst into a fit of passionate sobbing.

The illness from which she suffered was a long and trying one. She spent whole nights in coughing, and yet the ruling passion of avarice was so strong that she would scarcely take sufficient nourishment to sustain her. No consoling thought came to her to mitigate her suffering. She was utterly unwilling to resign herself to God and to submit to His will.

The good minister tried in every imaginable way to bring her to a better frame of mind. During the last days of her life she was occasionally a little softened in her manners, but she never evinced any true repentance. In the flower of her age she died, a sad instance of the effects of avarice, passion, and love of the world.

CHAPTER XX.

FORGIVING AN ENEMY.

And now we must return to Mary whom we left in her new surroundings.

Immediately after leaving Pine Farm, Mary went with the Count's family to the city, in which they spent part of every year. While they were there, a clergyman came one morning to their residence and asked to see Mary. He told her that he was charged with a message for her from a person who was very ill and probably near death, and who desired anxiously to speak to her. The clergyman said that the person was not willing to give her message to any one but to Mary herself.

Mary could not imagine what the woman could want with her, and she consulted the Countess as to what she ought to do. The Countess, knowing the clergyman to be a pious and prudent man, advised Mary to go with him, and at the minister's request old Anthony the huntsman accompanied them. After a long walk to the outskirts of the town, they arrived at last at a house situated in a side street, which presented a most gloomy aspect. "Here is the house," said the clergyman, knocking at the door, "but wait a little."