“Yes,” said the father, “and I dare say it will interest you to hear the reason why she has that name. She was born on the anniversary of the day that a young girl called Ambrosia came to life here in the sixteenth century. This was how it happened. The troubles of the Reformation were just beginning, and this young girl, who was the burgomaster’s daughter, was famous through the town for her holiness and modesty. She was betrothed to a young merchant who had been her playmate in childhood. Did you notice that great building on the corner of the street to the right of the cathedral? That was her father’s house; it is a hotel now. Her bridegroom lived two or three streets further off, on a corner too; and under the corner window, which was beautifully carved and painted, stood a wooden image of the Mother of God, with a lamp before it which was never allowed to go out. It began to be whispered about that Engelbrecht, the young lady’s betrothed, and a very handsome, dashing young fellow, was rather inclined to the new doctrines which Luther was then preaching all over Germany. Every one wondered how Ambrosia would take this, but no one knew anything positive until it became the talk of the city that one night Engelbrecht and a few companions, heated with wine and singing profane songs, had broken and extinguished the votive lamp before the image under his window, and thrown the image itself into the gutter. The next day it was known that Ambrosia was very ill, and had sent for her lover. He came, and, as he really was very fond of her, the sudden alteration in her looks frightened and subdued him for the moment. She took off the betrothal ring he had put upon her finger, and very gravely and sweetly told him that she could never be his bride on earth, but that she fervently hoped that she had indeed won his soul’s final salvation, through the joyful and willing sacrifice of her own life. She said she should die on the day that was fixed for their wedding, but that from the dead she would speak to him yet, and in public. Then a year would go by, and she told him that it was not given to her to know if he would repent or not during that time, but that on the anniversary of her death she would come to life again and walk from her tomb to the cathedral and back; and she summoned him to meet her there. It was her hope that, after that second call, he would surely be won back to God. So when her wedding day came, although she seemed happy and looked only very grave and pale, she called her father and mother and her lover to her, and there, sitting by the window that looked on the cathedral, she passed away without agony, and just as the hour struck which should have seen her a new-made wife. She was not buried for several days, for the scoffers said she was deceiving the people and simulating death. Doctors and priests watched the body for a week, and Mass was said in the room where she lay, surrounded with flowers and tall tapers. Exorcisms were even read over her, but the placid expression of her alabaster face seemed to grow only more heavenly day by day. At last signs of decomposition appeared, as if to make the marvel more certain, and those who had watched the body drew up a legal declaration of her undoubted death. She was brought to the churchyard, the family vault was opened, and the coffin, which was still uncovered, was just going to be finally closed, when she raised herself suddenly to a sitting posture, and, seemingly transfigured into greater beauty than had ever been hers in life, she gazed slowly round the crowd and beckoned to her lover. He stood transfixed, and the people fell back from him and left him face to face with his bride. She only said in a clear, pitying voice that was heard by all, ‘Remember, Engelbrecht, thy tryst with me one year from this day. God be with thee until then.’
“She fell slowly backwards into her narrow couch, and when the people had taken courage again, they came hurriedly and closed the coffin in great awe. A year went by, and Engelbrecht, uneasy and remorseful, plunged into worse excesses than ever, went heart and soul, at least outwardly, into the Lutheran movement, and became the head of a band of young men whose dissoluteness was spoken of with disgust by the licentious reformers themselves. The day came, and with it crowds flocked to the grave of Ambrosia. Those who had gone at sunrise found a white-robed figure kneeling there, its face hidden in its hands, and two long plaits of golden hair streaking its drapery. Those who had watched all night and gone there the evening previous after dusk, could tell nothing save that the grave had been the same as ever, but they thought they must have slept for a few minutes before midnight, since they had heard the quarter strike from the cathedral, and had looked at their timepieces directly after, and found it was half an hour after midnight. The radiant, silent figure was there then, and an odor as of incense filled the night air. As soon as the cathedral doors were open (it was in June), Ambrosia rose and turned towards the church. Some sceptics who saw the strange procession, rushed at once to the grave, and, hastily disinterring the coffin, found it empty. Crowds joined the procession to the cathedral, which the young girl reached during the first Mass, for the priests still had possession of it then. Every one wondered if her lover would meet her, but no sign of him appeared. Ambrosia looked incomparably more beautiful than in life; her eyes were cast down, and she wore a golden betrothal ring on her finger. She moved like a spirit, yet there was no doubting the reality and substance of her presence. There were many in the crowd who were scoffers and libertines, men whom no virtuous maiden’s eye would as much as glance upon, yet even they were silenced, and the marvellous beauty of Ambrosia seemed to have no other effect upon them than one of awe and unconscious restraint. The people followed her in and lined the aisles through which they knew she would walk on leaving the cathedral. She knelt for a moment before the high carved tabernacle, with a lovely miniature spire, quite in a separate corner from the altar—you have seen those tabernacles of ours in old Catholic churches in other parts of Germany, mein Herr?—and then she turned slowly back. There was no hurry, no anxiety nor expectancy, in her manner; still Engelbrecht had not been seen. She had come to the middle of the left aisle, still with her eyes persistently cast down, and though the people had all asked her many questions as to their future spiritual fate and that of others dear to them, yet she had never answered a word. Now, she stopped deliberately, yet never raising her eyes. A sob was heard in the crowd, and the serried masses heaved to and fro as a young man forced his way violently through. It was Engelbrecht, but he was unrecognizable. A cloak covered him from head to foot—evidently a studied disguise—yet what was more unlike him was his agitated, humble manner, the look of passionate self-accusation in his drawn features, and his impetuous disregard for appearances. As Ambrosia stopped, he rushed forward with his arms extended, but some unseen power stayed his progress, and though she was not a foot distant from him, he could not touch her. For the first time she lifted her head, and a look of love, pure as an angel’s over a repentant sinner, lighted up her ethereal face and mingled with an expression of deepest gratitude. She pointed to the betrothal ring on her finger, and then glanced upward without uttering one word. This second warning from the world of souls was of too solemn a nature to admit of even the holy yet too human expression that her words had given to the first, but it was unmistakably borne in upon the mind of her lover that as long as he kept true to the faith, he might hope to claim her as his spiritual bride in the kingdom of God. And, as she continued her journey toward her grave, he did not even follow her, but went straight to the Dominican convent and asked for the habit of the order. Those who accompanied Ambrosia to the churchyard could tell nothing as to the manner of her disappearance; all they knew was that they saw her one moment, and the next they saw nothing. Engelbrecht gave all his riches to the church to found a seminary somewhere beyond the bounds of the heretical countries of Germany, for the instruction of missionaries; the foundation eventually became a house of his order. He wished his own dwelling to be used for monastic or hospital purposes, should religion again revive in Augsburg; but his wish was not fulfilled. The house was forfeited to the state, and became successively a warehouse, a barrack, a prison, and a factory. Now, it is a great printing-office, and plenty of lies are coined into money within its walls, through the partisan newspapers that issue from it. You can see the corner window still, with its beautiful carving hardly injured by time, and the empty niche beneath it where the image of the Mother of God once stood. Have you noticed it, mein Herr?”
“No,” I said, hardly liking to answer, for fear of losing some further detail. “But what of Engelbrecht?”
The old German looked surprised.
“Why, I have told you he became a monk.”
“But did he distinguish himself against the reformers?”
“Ah!” said Reinhold, reverentially, “God knows, and his bride, but he left no record for the world to read. No doubt he worked out the will of God.”
I was silent, for I was ashamed of myself in the presence of this man, to whom the hidden life of the soul seemed so all-sufficient a history.
Ambrosia, his daughter, had come back long before this story was finished, and was sitting sewing diligently, and listening to it with all her father’s pride and personal enthusiasm in the matter.
“So,” continued Reinhold, “the day of this wonder was remembered, and among those who remained Catholics, it became a custom to christen girls born on that day by the name of the holy maiden Ambrosia. My child, thank God, was one of them.”