and heard him promise her a great happiness in return for her faithful
remembrance.

The very next Sunday, Veit Haselnuss, the bath-house proprietor, a well-
to-do man who owned another house besides the one where he lived, invited
her to take a walk with him. She knew instantly that her late husband
was beginning to pay his debt of gratitude with this visitor and, in
fact, a short time after, the worthy man asked her to be his wife, though
she had three little children, and his oldest daughter by his first wife
was already able to look after the housekeeping. The wedding took place
on Whitsunday, and she owed this great happiness entirely to the
dispensation which had released the dead man's soul from the fires of
purgatory and induced him to show his thankfulness.

Kuni listened to her companion's rapid flood of talk, until she herself
enjoined silence to hear the black-robed priest who stood beside the
coffer.

He was just urging his hearers, in a loud voice, to abandon the base
avarice which gathers pence. There was still time to gain, in exchange
for dead florins, living salvation.

Let those who repented sin listen, and they would hear the voices of
wailing parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and children, who
had preceded them to the other world. Whose heart was so utterly turned
to stone, whose parsimony, spite of all his love of money, was so strong
that he would allow these tortured souls to burn and suffer in the
flames, when it was in his power, by putting his hand into his purse,
to buy a dispensation which would as surely redeem them from the fires
of purgatory as his Imperial Majesty's pardon would release an imprisoned