Master Gregory, the exchanger, went home to his chests of treasure; and on his way he passed the widowed daughter of his old master the goldsmith, looking pinched and poor as usual, with a racking cough, leading her two frail, half-starved children. They were neatly clothed, as always, in their patched garments; and she greeted him with her wonted gentle friendliness, expecting nothing from him.
But his heart smote him.
"Perhaps I did make rather a hard bargain when her husband died," he said; "and her father certainly had been good to me. It is true she should not have married as she did, and I have left her more than she lost in my will. But if this monk is right, wills and testaments will not henceforth count for much in the reckoning of that Day. I might as well, perhaps, do something for her at once."
And that night, as he counted over his gold and parchments (for in those days misers had more visual delight in their possessions than they have now), the parchments seemed to shrivel in the light of the fire which was to consume the very heavens as a scroll, and instead of the pleasant ring of gold, the dry rustle of dead leaves was in his ears.
But the poor widowed mother he had passed went home lightened in heart, with her children. And when she had given them their scanty supper, and folded them to sleep, she knelt beside them, and her thankful tears fell on the thin little hands over which she wept.
"Thank God!" she murmured, "at last I may long to go to my beloved; for we shall go together, we three, his babes and I; and he will see his prayers answered, and will know I did my best for them, and did not hasten away to him too soon, for all the longing to go."
And even the prattling voice of little Hilda, the child of Blind Bruno, the basketmaker, was hushed as she led her father through the streets, instead of the faithful dog Keeper, who was growing old. She only clung to her father's hand closer than usual.
Bruno also was very silent.
Margarethe, the mother, met them, as always, on the threshold; for Bruno liked no other hands but those which had tended him so faithfully for twenty years to welcome him, and unloose his cloak, and settle him at the table or by the hearth. He could not see how thin the hands had grown, and how worn the face was. The feeble fingers seemed to gather strength always to do anything for him; and if sometimes he thought they failed a little, the soft clear voice had always its old tones to cheer him, and he had always words of tender greeting for her.