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 eggs, quickly set the plate with them and the salt cup on the table, and signed herself with the cross.

“Take care, young man; great is the misfortune if we unexpectedly meet a heretic—and if that old man was nota heretic, I will at once have my little finger cut off. The book in which you caught him reading was a Bible. Those people are always digging into it. I can tell a heretic by his greeting. Their sleeves are full of proverbs, with which they mix the Holy Scriptures in a sinful way, constantly perverting and degrading them.”

“Heretic?” the harper carefully repeated. “What do you mean by that word?”

“What else than a heretic in religion?’ The stewardess laughed at the ignorance of her guest. “Why, has not the young man heard about people who turn away from our religion and blindly fall into the infernal abyss? To be sure, gentlemen like you have other things on their minds than to care that our Holy Religion might not be corrupted by weak-minded and ignorant people. But such indif-