"Most beautiful was this young creature, but, may God forgive me! I was bitterly angry with her for being so and for coming to church dressed up as if for a ball. 'Incorrigible comedian blood,' I scolded to myself. I thanked God that Klaus could not see her from his seat, and gave Stürmer an unfriendly look because he kept looking over at our pew. All at once, as the clergyman was singing the liturgy, Susanna put her hand to her forehead, as if to grasp something there, and then sank back silently, with closed eyes, into her seat.
"I cannot tell now the exact order in which all this happened; I only remember that a chair was overturned with a loud noise, that the clergyman was silent for an instant, and that there was a movement among the congregation; at the same time Klaus left our pew, carrying out the white figure in his arms, like a feather. I rose at once to follow him. Anna Maria's head was bent low over her hymn-book; was she going to take no notice of the affair? But now she slowly rose, and went behind me down the narrow, creaking flight of steps which led up outside the church to our pew; it was provided with a wooden roof as a protection against wind and storms, and the ivy which grew over the whole church adorned it like a bridal arch with green festoons.
"Klaus was just disappearing into one of the nearest cottages, whose shining window-panes looked out like clear eyes beneath the gray shingle-roof, not at all sad at the constant view of the little church-yard. Marieken Märtens and her husband lived here; she had been in Anna Maria's service, a quick, industrious girl, but once was sent away in the utmost haste because she--but that has nothing to do with the case. Anna Maria had her brought back again at that time, and she was married from the manor-house, and since then Anna Maria and I had each held a curly brown head over the font. When there was anything going on at our house--that is, when there was extra work--Marieken came and helped.
"She was at the threshold coming to meet us already, wiping her hands on her clean apron, and pushing back her eldest child. 'She is lying on the sofa inside,' she whispered. 'Oh, the master looks pale as death from fright!' Anna Maria stepped by me into the little room; she made a sign for me to stay outside, so I sat down on the wooden stool that Marieken placed in the entry for me, and listened intently for every sound from within.