Now Anna Apenborg's curiosity was excited in the highest degree at all this, and her feet began to beat up and down on the floor as if she were dying to dance likewise; at last she exclaimed, "Ah, dear lady! what is the meaning of that? Could you not teach it to me, if it cures the rheumatism? that is, if there be no devil's work in it (from which God keep us). I have twelve pounds of wool lying by me; will you take it, dear lady, for teaching me the secret?"
But Sidonia answered, "Keep your wool, good Anna, and I will keep my secret, seeing that it is impossible for me to teach it to you; for know, that a woman can only learn it of a man, and a man of a woman; and this we call the doctrine of sympathies. However, go your ways now, and tell the abbess that, if she does my will, I will visit her and see what I can do to help her; but, remember, my will she must do."
Hereupon sister Anna was all eagerness to know what her will was, but Sidonia bade her hold her tongue, and then locked up the viands in the press, while Wolde went into the kitchen with the kettle, where Anna Apenborg followed her slowly, to try and pick something out of the old hag, but without any success, as one may easily imagine.
CHAPTER II.
How Sidonia visits the abbess, Magdalena von Petersdorf, and explains her wishes, but is diverted to other objects by a sight of David Ludeck, the chaplain to the convent.
When Sidonia went to visit the abbess, as she had promised, she found her lying in bed and moaning, so that it might have melted the heart of a stone; but the old witch seemed quite surprised—"What could be the matter with the dear, good mother? but by God's help she would try and cure her. Only, concerning this little matter of the refectory, it might as well be settled first, for Anna Apenborg told her the room was to be taken from her; but would not the good mother permit her to keep it?"
And when the tortured matron answered, "Oh yes; keep it, keep it,"
Sidonia went on—
"There was just another little favour she expected for curing her dear mother (for, by God's help, she expected to cure her). This was, to make her sub-prioress in place of Dorothea Stettin; for, in the first place, the situation was due to her rank, she being the most illustrious lady in the convent, dowered with castles and lands; secondly, because her illustrious forefathers had helped to found this convent; and thirdly, it was due to her age, for she was the natural mother of all these young doves, and much more fitted to keep them in order and strict behaviour than Dorothea Stettin."
Here the abbess answered, "How could she make her sub-prioress while the other lived? This was not to be done? Truly sister Dorothea was somewhat prudish and whining, this she could not deny, for she had suffered many crosses in her path; but, withal, she was an upright, honest creature, with the best and simplest heart in the world; and so little selfishness, that verily she would lay down her life for the sisterhood, if it were necessary."
Illa.—"A good heart was all very well, but what could it do without respect? and how could a poor fool be respected who fell into fits if she saw a bride, particularly here, where the young sisters thought of nothing but marriage from morning till night."