Ann covered my aunt’s hands with kisses, and the words flowed heartily and glaaiy from her lips as she cried:  “Yes, yes, yes!  It is so!  And if he beat me and scorned me, if he fell so deep that no man would leap in after him, I, I, would never let him sink.”

And then Ann threw herself on my neck and said:  “Oh, how light is my heart once more.  Ah, Margery! now, when I long to pray, I know well enough what for.”

My aunt’s dim eyes had rarely shone so brightly as at this hour, and her voice sounded clearer and firmer than it was wont when she once more addressed us and said:  “And now the old woman will finish up by telling you a little tale for your guidance.  You knew Riklein, the spinster, whom folks called the night-spinster; and was not she a right loving and cheerful soul?  Yet had she known no small meed of sorrows.  She died but lately on Saint Damasius’ day last past, and the tale I have to tell concerns her.  They called her the night-spinster, by reason that she ofttimes would sit at her wheel till late into the night to earn money which she was paid at the rate of three farthings the spool.  But it was not out of greed that the old body was so keen to get money.

“In her youth she had been one of the neatest maids far and wide, and had set her heart on a charcoal burner who was a sorry knave indeed, a sheep-stealer and a rogue, who came to a bad end on the rack.  But for all that Riklein never ceased to love him truly and, albeit he was dead and gone, she did not give over toiling diligently while she lived yet for him.  The priest had told her that, inasmuch as her lover had taken the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on the scaffold, the Kingdom of Heaven was not closed to him, yet would it need many a prayer and many a mass to deliver him from the fires of purgatory.  So Riklein, span and span, day and night, and stored up all she earned, and when she lay on her death-bed, not long ago, and the priest gave her the Holy Sacrament, she took out her hoard from beneath her mattress and showed it to him, asking whether that might be enough to pay to open the way for Andres to the joys of Heaven?  And when the chaplain said that it would be, she turned away her face and fell asleep.  So do you spin your yarn, child, and let the flax on your distaff be glad assurance; and, if ever your heart sinks within you, remember old Riklein!”

“And the Farmer’s daughter in ‘Poor Heinrich,’” I said, “who gladly gave her young blood to save her plighted lord from leprosy.”

Thus had my aunt gained her end; but when she strove to carry Ann away from her home and kindred, and keep her in the forest as her own child—­to which Master Pernhart and his mother gave their consent—­she failed in the attempt.  Ann was steadfast in her desire to remain with her mother and the children, and more especially with her deaf and dumb brother, Mario.  If my aunt should at any time need her she had but to command her, and she would gladly go to her, this very day if she desired it; howbeit duly to work out her spinning—­and by this she meant that she bore Riklein in mind—­she must ever do her part for her own folk, with a clear conscience.