The priest who had addressed the crowd, advanced to the prioress.
"Whither are you going, my daughter?" said he.
The prioress raised her head, and stared at him with vacant, tearless eyes.
"We must go into the wide, wide world," replied she. "The emperor has forbidden us to serve the Lord."
"The emperor intends you to become useful members of society," said a voice among the crowd. "The emperor intends that you shall cease your everlasting prayers, and turn your useless hands to some account. Instead of living on your knees, he intends to force you to become honest wives and mothers, who shall be of some use to him by bearing children, as you were told to do when your mother Eve was driven from HER paradise."
Every head was turned in eager curiosity to discover the speaker of these bold words; but in vain, he could not be identified.
"But how are you going to live?" asked the priest, when the murmurs had ceased.
"The emperor has given us a pension of two hundred ducats," said the prioress, gently.
"But that will not maintain you without—"
"It will maintain honest women who deserve to live," cried the same voice that had spoken before. "Ask the people around you how they live, and whether they have pensions from the crown. And I should like to know whether a lazy nun is any better than a peasant's wife? And if you are afraid of the world, go among the Ursulines who serve the emperor by educating children. The Ursulines are not to be suppressed."