Presently the Savior's name was mentioned, and in her flurry
she lost her head completely, and rose and courtesied,
instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did.
The sympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave
those fine birds what I intended to be a beseeching look,
but my feelings got the better of me and changed it into
a look which said, "If any of you pets of fortune laugh
at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for it."
Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself
mentally taking the unfriended lady under my protection.
My mind was wholly upon her. I forgot all about the sermon.
Her embarrassment took stronger and stronger hold upon her;
she got to snapping the lid of her smelling-bottle--it
made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she snapped
and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing.
The last extremity was reached when the collection-plate
began its rounds; the moderate people threw in pennies,
the nobles and the rich contributed silver, but she laid
a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before her
with a sounding slap! I said to myself, "She has parted
with all her little hoard to buy the consideration of these
unpitying people--it is a sorrowful spectacle." I did not
venture to look around this time; but as the service closed,
I said to myself, "Let them laugh, it is their opportunity;
but at the door of this church they shall see her step
into our fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman
shall drive her home."

Then she rose--and all the congregation stood while she
walked down the aisle. She was the Empress of Germany!