Usually she liked to dress slowly, thinking meanwhile of many things
which stirred her soul. Sometimes while the maid or Els braided her hair
she could read a book of devotion which the abbess had given her. But
this morning she had carried the clothes she needed into the next room on
tiptoe, that she might not wake her sister, and urged Katterle, who
helped her dress, to hurry.
She longed to see her aunt at the convent. While kneeling at the prie-
dieu, she had reached the certainty that her patron saint had led Heinz
Schorlin to her. He was her knight and she his lady, so he must render
her obedience, and she would use it to estrange him from the vanity of
the world and make him a champion of the holy cause of the Church of
Christ, the victorious conqueror of her foes. Sky-blue, the Holy
Virgin's colour, should be hers, and thus his also, and every victory
gained by the knight with the sky-blue on his helmet, under St. Clare's
protection, would then be hers.
Heinz Schorlin was already one of the boldest and strongest knights; her
love must render him also one of the most godly. Yes, her love! If St.