"Then Angela is a riddle to me," returned Richard. "I cannot conceive the motives of her actions."
"Which are so natural! The maiden follows the impulses of her own noble nature, and these impulses are developed and directed by Christian culture, and convent education. Angela was a long time with the nuns, and only returned home two years ago. Here you have the very natural solution of the riddle."
"Are you acquainted with the Siegwart family?"
"No; what I know of Angela I learned from the people of Salingen."
They arrived at the platform. Klingenberg stood silent for some time admiring the landscape. The view did not seem to interest Richard. His eyes rested on Angela's home, whose white walls, surrounded by vineyards and corn-fields, glistened in the sun.
"It is worth while to come up here oftener," said Klingenberg.
"Angela's work," said Richard as he drew near the statue. The doctor paused a moment and examined the flowers.
"Do you observe Angela's fine taste in the arrangement of the colors?" said he. "And the forget-me-nots! What a deep religious meaning they have."
They returned by another way to Frankenhöhe.
"Angela's pious work," began Richard after a long pause, "reminds me of a religious custom against which modern civilization has thus far warred in vain. I mean the veneration of saints. You, as a Protestant, will smile at this custom, and I, as a Catholic, must deplore the tenacity with which my church clings to this obsolete remnant of heathen idolatry."