"Still, Rikké!" said the veiled lady, without looking at the child, or uncovering her face. "Wilt thou into the nursery again?"
"Yes, willingly, mother: it is much more pleasant," exclaimed the little restless girl, running out.
The veiled lady heaved a deep sigh, and relapsed into her former silence. She was busied in rubbing spots of rust from a large broad battle-blade, which lay across her knees; but she appeared to direct her thoughts to her work with difficulty, and her hands often fell inertly on her knees.
"Mother," said the quiet, grave maiden with the gold embroidery, "I am thinking of what our Lord and Redeemer would say, if he still journeyed about the world, and were to come to us here."
"If the Just One stood amongst us, child, he would ask why justice slumbers so long."
"Ah, mother, think you not he would rather say as he said to the holy Peter, the night he was betrayed by the false Judas?"
"I have forgotten it," answered the mother. "Has Father Anton taught it you? What said he, then?"
"It stands in the holy text, dear mother." And she repeated, with folded hands, and in a singing tone, the passage in Matthew--"'Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?'"
The mother was silent, and sank into a gloomy reverie. "Thou art a pious child, my Margarethé," she said, at length; "but thou art little like thy brave father. Thou art still too young to understand the cruel injustice and the monstrous scandal that befell his house. Thou canst not understand wherefore thy mother will not suffer any one in the world to look upon her face. There are stains, unmerited stains, that can only be washed out in a manner that is costly, and dangerous, and dreadful, but necessary as eternal justice. Thy mother has not quite forgotten the pious instructions of her childhood. Knowest thou what our righteous Lord and Judge said, when he foresaw the cruel injustice he should suffer?--'He who hath not a sword, let him sell his garment and buy one!'"
"Yea, right, right, my daughter Ingeborg!" was uttered by a broken, aged voice, from an obscure corner of the apartment: "so it stands written. It is God's own word. Buy me a sword for my garment: I need no garments. All the garments in the world will not hide our shame!"