ILHELM KALBFLEISCH, the butcher's boy, was one of the most uninteresting specimens of humanity that I have ever seen. That any of us would ever give him even a passing glance seemed quite beyond the range of probability, and yet Wilhelm's stolid, good-natured face haunted Winnie's dreams like a very Nemesis, and came to acquire a new and singular interest even in my own mind.
We passed a little Catholic church on our way to the boarding-school.
"We are early," said Winnie. "Let's go in."
It was Lent, and the altar was shrouded in black, and only a few candles burning dimly. We stood beside a carved confessional. A muffled murmur came from the interior, and the red curtains pulsated as though in time to sobs.
"Let us go out," whispered Milly; "I am stifling."
She looked so white that I was really afraid she was going to faint. "I feel better," she gasped, when we reached the open air.
"It was frightfully close," Winnie said, "and the air was heavy with incense."
"It was not that," said Milly, "it was the thought of it all; that there was a poor woman in that confessional telling all her sins to a priest. I never could do it in the world."
"It would be a comfort to me," said Winnie, fiercely. "I only wish there was some one with authority, to whom I could confess my sins, that I might get rid of the responsibility of them."
"There is," I said, before I thought; "'He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.'"