VIII. A SISTER OUTSIDE THE FAMILY…

VIII. A SISTER OUTSIDE THE FAMILY

Snow lay upon the roof of the convent, and upon the trees, meadows, and roads of the island; but within the great house was an animated twofold life, for the whole sacred narrative was here rehearsed afresh in the minds and before the eyes of the children. Every day were recalled those mighty events, so touching and blessed, that took place in Canaan nearly two thousand years ago. Manna lived so entirely in these representations, that she often had to stop and force herself to think where she was. She was seized with a longing to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to kiss the soil of the Holy Land, and there atone for all the evil done by those who were near to her, and those who were strangers to her.

Her eyes beamed as with a fire from above, while with wonderful power she repeated the sacred history to little Heimchen, who was again sick in bed. But the little girl made her smile to-day by asking:--

"Is there snow in Jerusalem too, then?"

Manna had scarcely considered what season of the year it was, so entirely was she absorbed in the life she was describing. As she turned to look at the melting snow, a lay-sister entered and handed her a letter.

"Where is the messenger?" she asked.

"He is waiting in the reception-room."

"I will give him an answer," returned Manna, and began to read her letter a second time.

She paced the cell backwards and forwards; at one moment she wanted to seek the Lady Superior and ask what she should do, but the next, her heart shrank at the thought. Why ask advice of another human being? She looked at her hand, which had been pressed upon her eyes. You cannot weep, said a voice within her; you must not weep for aught in this world.

"What is the matter?" cried Heimchen from the bed. "What makes you look so cross?"

"I am not cross, I am not cross; do you think I am?"

"No; now you look pleasant again. Stay with me, Manna--stay with me; don't go away--stay with me, Manna. Manna, shall die."

Manna bent over the child and soothed her. This is the first trial, she thought, and it is a hard one. Now I must show whether love of mankind, of the Saviour, is stronger in me than family affection. I ought, I must! She committed Heimchen to the care of a lay-sister, and, promising soon to return, descended to the church. At sight of the picture, which made her think involuntarily of the man who was with Roland, she covered her face with her hands, threw herself in deep contrition upon her knees, and prayed fervently. Thus she lay long, her face buried in her hands. At length her decision was made, and she rose. I ought and must, and I can! I must have strength for it! I am resolved to live only for the service of the Eternal. Roland has good care taken of him; he recognizes no one; if I go to him it will be to remove my own distress, not his. Here, on the other hand, is Heimchen sick and needing me. There is no question as to my duty; I will stay at the post where not my will, but that of the Highest, has placed me.

She remembered the Lady Superior telling her how her father and mother had died, and she could not leave her convent to go to them. Manna resolved to do the same thing voluntarily, under the compulsion of no vow. She trembled as she thought that it might be better for Roland if he could die now before he fell into sin, and perhaps had to hear the dreadful secret. The idea was almost more than she could bear, but she held her resolution fast.

Manna returned to her cell, meaning to write and tell all that was in her soul, but she could not. She descended to the reception-room, told Lootz simply that she could not go back with him; and then, returning again to her cell, looked out upon the landscape. Life seemed frozen within her, but as the melting snow dripped from the roof, so her tears broke forth at last, and she wept bitterly; yet her decision remained unshaken. The whole night was spent in watching and prayer, and the next morning she told her story to the Lady Superior, who made no answer besides a silent inclination of the head.

Again in her cell, Manna read the letter, and was made aware for the first time that Eric's mother was nursing Roland. The paper trembled in her hand, as she read of Roland's constant talking with her in his fevered ravings. Why did her father write nothing of Pranken? Where was he? she asked herself; then, indignant that her thoughts should still cling to the world, with a sudden resolve she flung the letter into the open grate, and watched it break into momentary flame, and then float in light flakes up the chimney. So had it been in her heart, so ought it to be; nothing more from the outer world should reach her.

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IX. GROWTH DURING ILLNESS

"He is saved!" said the doctor, and "He is saved," was repeated by voice after voice through the whole city.

The doctor enjoined double care in guarding Roland from the least excitement of any kind, and when the boy complained of the horrible tedium of his sick-room, both Eric and the doctor laughingly reminded him that he had his good time in the first place, and that ennui was the first sure step towards recovery. Roland complained also of being kept hungry, and then added, his face seeming to grow fuller and fairer as he spoke:--

"Hiawatha voluntarily suffered hunger, and do you remember, Eric, my thinking then that man was the only creature that could voluntarily hunger? Now I must practice what I preached."

Roland showed himself particularly full of affection toward Eric's mother. He maintained that she was the only person he had recognized during his delirium, and that it had caused him the greatest distress not to be able to say so at the time, but the wrong words would keep coming from his mouth. Even the Mother did not stay with him long at a time.

He rejoiced to see lilies of the valley in his room, and remembered that he had dreamed of them.

"Was not Manna with me too? I was always seeing her black eyes."

Heimchen's illness, they told him, prevented her leaving the convent.

He wanted to see the photograph taken of him in his page's dress, and said to Eric:

"You were right, it will be a pleasant recollection to me by and by. Indeed the by and by is already here; it seems to me two years ago. Do give me a glass, for I must know how I look."

"Not now," returned Eric; "not for a week yet."

Roland was as obedient as a little child, and as grateful as an appreciative man. The second day, he begged Eric to let him relieve his mind by speaking out what was in it.

"If you will speak calmly I will hear you."

"Listen to me then, and warn me when I speak too excitedly. I was on the sea, and dolphins were playing about the ship, when suddenly there was nothing to be seen but black men's heads, and in the midst of them a pulpit swimming, in which stood Theodore Parker preaching with a mighty voice, louder than the roaring of the sea; and the pulpit kept swimming on and on with the ship----"

"You are speaking excitedly already," interposed Eric. Roland went on more quietly, in a low tone, but every word perfectly distinct:--

"Now comes the most beautiful part of all. I told you how as I lay in the forest that time when I was journeying after you--nearly a year ago now--there came a child with long, bright, wavy hair, and said, 'This is the German forest;' and I gave her mayflowers, and she was taken up in a carriage and disappeared; you remember it all, don't you? But in my dream it was even more bright and beautiful. 'This is the German forest,' was sung by hundreds and hundreds of voices, just as it was at the musical festival, oh, so beautifully, so beautifully!"

"That will do," interrupted Eric; "you have told enough, and must be left alone awhile."

Eric told his mother of the strange fairy story, which that decisive journey had given rise to in Eric's mind--he had heard of it before from Claus--and mentioned as a singular circumstance, that this second revolution in the boy's nature resulting in his illness, should have recalled to him this story.

The Mother was of opinion that something similar to the story must actually have happened, but warned Eric not to refer to the subject again, for every recollection of past events retarded recovery and a return to a natural state of mind.

The first time Roland could stand up, they were all surprised to see how much he had grown during his illness. The down too, on his lip and chin, to his great delight, had increased perceptibly. When he saw, for the first time, the straw spread before the house, he said,--

"So the whole city has known of my illness, and I have every one to thank. That is the best of all. How many I owe gratitude to! Whoever shall come to me now, for the rest of my life will have a claim upon me."

Eric and his mother exchanged glances as Roland spoke, and then cast their eyes to the ground. Wonderful was the awakening to life displayed before them in this young soul.

"Did Eric tell you that I had seen Pranken? asked Roland.

"Yes. Now lie down to sleep."

"No," he cried; "one thing more!"

He called for his pocket-book, in which he had written the name of the groom whom he had suspected of robbing him on his night journey. Reproaching himself for having hitherto neglected to inquire about him, he charged Eric to find the man, who was now a soldier in his regiment here, and bring him to his room.

The soldier came, and received from Roland a sum of money very nearly as large as that in the purse at the time. Eric had no need to have given such strict injunctions to the man not to excite Roland by much talking, and vehement expressions of gratitude, for the soldier had no power to speak a word. He felt as if he were in fairy land, at being thus summoned into a great hotel, before a beautiful sick boy, and presented with such a sum of money; it was like being transported into another world.

Contented and happy, Roland lay in bed again. He begged his father, when next he came to his bedside, to give away all his clothes, for he would wear none of them again.

"Do you want to put on your uniform at once?" asked Sonnenkamp.

"No, not now; but I want to go home soon, as soon as we can, back to the villa; home, home!"

Sonnenkamp promised all should be as he desired.

The Professorin soon fell in with some young people whom Roland's clothes just fitted, and he exclaimed with delight when, he heard it.--

"That is good; now my clothes will go about the streets until I am there again myself; I shall be represented sevenfold."

He desired his father to express his thanks to all the persons who had so kindly shown an interest in him, a duty which Sonnenkamp would readily have performed without this admonition. It afforded the best possible way, better than the most brilliant entertainment, of coming in contact with the aristocracy.

With his handsomest carriage and horses, Sonnenkamp drove through the whole city. His wife had refused all his entreaties that she would accompany him; but he succeeded in inducing the Professorin to be his companion. She, also, refused at first, but yielded to Roland's persuasions. It was the first request, as he said, that he had asked of her since his return to life, and she should and must gratify him by going with his father.

In proportion to the pain it cost the noble lady to make her reappearance before the world in such companionship, was the ease with which all doors flew open, as if by magic, wherever Lootz showed the cards of the Professorin and Sonnenkamp.

The lady herself was often unconscious that this was the effect of her presence; she only knew that she was tightening between herself and Sonnenkamp the bonds from which she would gladly be free, and, whenever she returned to the carriage, she begged him not to say so much about her motherly care of Roland. Sonnenkamp, who was looked upon as of quite secondary importance by the persons visited, skilfully contrived to make himself the central point of the conversation by praising the Professorin's nobleness of spirit, and enlarging upon his own great happiness in being allowed connection with such a family.

On this excursion Sonnenkamp tasted the best pleasure of which he was capable; for his highest pleasure was in hypocrisy, and in the luxury of its exercise, he forgot his deep-rooted indignation at the pride of the resident families, who were now obliged to receive him as an equal. Where he hitherto had been permitted only a few hasty and unmeaning words, he was now allowed comfortably to display his manifold experiences, around all of which a softening halo was cast by the genuine sentiment that served as their setting, the sentiment of fatherly affection. His manner, also, of confessing that he had not always thought as favorably as he should of human nature, but had been taught by the Dournays to honor true nobility of mind, won for him the reluctant interest of all. He laughed to himself, as he went down the steps, at the thought of persons saying, as he knew they would, "We really never knew the man before; he has a vast deal of character and great sensibility."

He treated with especial consideration the members of the committee upon orders, knowing himself, and having had particularly enjoined upon him by Pranken, the importance of gaining them over to his plan.

Thus had Roland's illness given a fresh impulse to the nobility project; and the Professorin had, against her will, co-operated to the same end.

Sonnenkamp could not do enough to testify his respect for the lady who, after all, had gained him his greatest triumph. In spite of her refusal to come to his fête, and help in furthering his plan, she had now become his tool. He never grew tired of rejoicing in the conviction that all mankind could be used like puppets; some were to be bought by the ringing of gold, and some by the ringing of their own praises.

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X. DECORATION WITH THREE EXCLAMATION MARKS

An audience had been requested of the Princess, that the Sonnenkamp family might present their thanks. The answer returned was that the Frau Professorin would be welcome, thus refusing to admit Sonnenkamp.

He next desired that Roland should write a letter of thanks to the Princess for the Professorin to hand to her, but several rough drafts, which his son wrote out, he so roughly discarded, that the poor boy was thrown into a state of feverish excitement which threatened to bring on a relapse. He was quieted by the interposition of the Professorin, who promised to deliver by word of mouth all that he had to say; but this scene put a violent end to the childlike affectionateness which had sprung up in him since his illness.

While the Professorin was at the palace, Sonnenkamp promenaded the palace garden, where he could keep in sight the carriage and servants, determined to hear at once what should be said of him there. This was the most painful experience that the Professorin had yet had to undergo. She was obliged to acquiesce in the Princess' praises of Sonnenkamp's generous nature, his extensive charities, and his noble magnanimity, of which the Cabinetsräthin, lady of honor to the queen, had given a full report, and nothing was left the Professorin but to listen, without the power to speak a word of contradiction. It was a fresh proof to her of the false position in which she was placed, and the dishonest game to which she had been made to lend a hand; first in the convent, and now at court. Yet she dared not raise her voice against this noble reputation of Sonnenkamp's, for in what light would she herself appear if she should confess what she knew?

When she was re-entering the carriage, after her audience from the Princess, a voice which cried "Stop!" made her tremble from head to foot. Sonnenkamp seated himself beside her, and required her to tell him instantly what the Princess had said. His delight at her report made him so far forget himself as to exclaim aloud,--

"Roland's illness has been a blessing to us all,--by giving us the right to call the Frau Professorin our friend," he quickly added, by way of correction. Even that she had to accept in silence, and was further distressed by being obliged to repeat the Princess' words for the benefit of Pranken, who, with Clodwig, now joined them.

She felt herself hemmed in on every side, and excusing herself early, she withdrew, in the hope of finding again in solitude her true self.

Clodwig had come, as member of the Committee upon Orders, to announce confidentially to Sonnenkamp that an order had been decreed him. Pranken embraced him when they were again alone together, exclaiming,--

"That is the first step, the first sure step."

Sonnenkamp was greatly delighted, and begged Pranken to wait while he hurried to carry the good news to Frau Ceres.

"So that is for you," she said, complainingly; "what is there for me?"

He assured her that the title of nobility would certainly follow speedily.

"Oh, but it takes so long," she complained.

He confessed to some disappointment and vexation on his own part at the slowness and formality with which everything in the Old World was conducted, but recommended patience.

"It is a good thing, to be sure," replied Frau Ceres, "that you should have an order; every one in society will see now at once that you are not a servant."

Sonnenkamp smilingly shook his head, but avoided any long discussions with Frau Ceres.

A few days afterwards, carriage after carriage drew up before the door of the hotel, bringing congratulations. Sonnenkamp affected great modesty, but Roland did not disguise his pleasure and pride, and insisted that his father should never go out without his new decoration.

The following sentence, however, in Professor Crutius's paper added bitterness to their cup of joy:--

"(Market price of Honors) Herr Sonnenkamp, of Villa Eden, transplanted from Havana, has received, from the highest quarter, the cross of honor for his services, it is said, in the ennobling of horticulture, which includes the ennobling of the horticulturist. Nothing now is wanting in the garden of Eden but that genealogical tree, which flourishes so excellently in our favored land."

There were malicious persons enough ready to express to Sonnenkamp their indignation at this would-be witty sharpness, while they watched him with curiosity to see what face he would put upon the matter. He appeared quite indifferent, but inwardly resolved to buy over that most virtuous of moralists, called Public Opinion.

He went to the publishing office, was shown into the editor's room, and was received with the utmost politeness by Professor Crutius. He opened the conversation by saying that he knew very well how to take a joke, and that his life in America had familiarized him with publicity; which remarks Crutius saw no occasion for answering. With great condescension, Sonnenkamp proceeded to express his pleasure at finding the Professor in such an influential position; Crutius bowed his acknowledgments. A little gas jet was burning in the editor's room, at which Sonnenkamp asked permission to light his cigar, offering one at the same time to Crutius, who accepted with thanks.

"I remember," began Sonnenkamp, "a bold and striking remark which you made on the occasion of my having the honor of receiving a visit from you; you had the courage to say that America was approaching a monarchical form of government."

"I remember saying so," replied Crutius, "half in jest and half in earnest, and I threw out the remark not merely as starting a good subject of conversation, but because I was of opinion that the reluctance of the best men in America to take part in politics was a sign of approaching monarchy."

"And you are no longer of that opinion?" asked Sonnenkamp, as Crutius paused.

He knew that he was reported to be in league with the party who were aiming to form an empire in Mexico, and thence to extend the monarchical form of government over the New World. It was a harmless, in some respects, an honorable reputation to have, that of being an agent for establishing a monarchy in the Southern States of the Union. Crutius sat for some time in silence, eyeing the figure before him with a keen and smiling glance. At last he said:--

"I am no longer of that opinion. The indifference of the better classes in America has ceased, as is evident from the papers as well as from the public meetings. I have also seen some letters written to Herr Weidmann by his nephew Dr. Fritz, which plainly prove that a change for the better has taken place. All feel again their rights as citizens, and political and party strife is everywhere uppermost."

"Ah, Herr Weidmann," said Sonnenkamp; "I am told that that worthy gentleman has a share in your paper."

"I know no man; I know nothing but party."

"The true American principle. That is good!" exclaimed Sonnenkamp, and went on to express, in a friendly tone, the regret that all must feel at seeing the press here so far behind the high standard attained in other countries. For that reason he should be very willing, he said, if a man of the Professor's experience would establish a new journal, to come forward to its support with a considerable sum of money, as well as to communicate important items of intelligence from his private correspondence.

"The matter is worth considering," replied Crutius. He went to his strong box and opened it, evidently with the intention of returning to Sonnenkamp the money he had formerly received from him, but saying, almost in so many words, to himself:--No, not yet; you shall have a public receipt for it by and by,--he closed the box, and, resuming his seat opposite Sonnenkamp, began:--

"I have an apology to make to you; at the time I had the honor of visiting you at your villa, I took you to be the notorious Banfield."

He carefully watched the expression of his visitor's face as he spoke.

"Thank you for telling me so," replied Sonnenkamp, very tranquilly. "The only way to clear up such a misunderstanding is to tell it to a man's face. Unfortunately, I have been often confounded with that man, and once actually went to Virginia in order to become personally acquainted with this double of mine; but he died just as I arrived there."

"Indeed! I had not heard of his death, and am somewhat surprised that Herr Weidmann's nephew, who was at open war with Banfield, should not have informed me of it. But it is astonishing what a strong resemblance there is between yourself and him. Of course I shall not mention the circumstance in my obituary of Banfield."

"As far as I myself am concerned," said Sonnenkamp, smiling, "it would make no difference; but you know the delight which the European aristocracy takes in any American scandal, and such a connection of names might to my wife and children be--well, might be very disagreeable."

Crutius protested that all personalities were wholly indifferent to him; he dealt only with principles, a sentiment which Sonnenkamp entirely approved and considered one of the advantages of European culture.

Crutius accompanied Herr Sonnenkamp with great politeness, through the outer offices as far as the head of the staircase; but the air of the room seemed to oppress him when he returned to it, and he threw open the windows.

"It is he, nevertheless," he said to himself. "Take care. Knight of the Cross of Honor, I have hold of you by another ribbon, and am only granting you a little longer time to flutter about me."

He hunted up the paper that contained the notice, made a broad red mark and three exclamation marks on the margin, and laid the sheet by in a special compartment labelled, "For future use."

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XI. A NEW LIFE IN EVERYTHING

The Prince must have forgotten that he had meant to send for Sonnenkamp, who now found himself deprived of all opportunity of expressing his thanks in person to him or to his brother, by their departure, in company with many nobles of the court, and Pranken among them, for a royal hunting-seat where the great Spring hunts were to be held. Pranken had left the capital in great ill-humor at Herr Sonnenkamp's having been guilty of the impropriety of entering into any relations with the editor of a newspaper.

All was quiet in the Hotel Victoria. Eric's mother and aunt had already returned to the green cottage, and Roland begged and entreated every day that the whole family might break up their establishment in the Capital. At last his wish was granted, and Sonnenkamp favored his house, his servants, the park and the hot-houses, with a sight of the glory of his button-hole. This decoration he brought back, and could always preserve as a happy memento of that winter of pleasure and of pain. Roland never grew weary of greeting the familiar objects with fresh delight. A feeling and love of home seemed to be roused in him, for the first time, in its full intensity.

"I see now," he said to Eric, "that this living in hotels and anywhere else than in one's own house is like living on a railway. I can go to sleep, but I hear all the time the rattle of wheels in my dreams. That is the way when we are abroad, but now we are at home again, and I have a grandmother near by to visit, and an aunt, and the Major is a kind of uncle, and Claus is like a faithful old tower. The dogs too are glad to have me at home again. Nora looked at me a little strange at first, but soon recognized me, and her pups are splendid. Now we will be busy and merry again. It would be nice to plant a tree to remember this day by, and have you plant one near it, don't you think so? Don't you feel as I do, that you have just come into the world, and that all that has happened before was only a dream? If I could only erect something that should always be saying to me: Remember how happy you once were, and how happy you are, and let nothing further trouble you in the world. Oh, how beautiful it is here! The Rhine is broader than I remembered it, and the mountains look down so upon me! I think I saw them in my fever, but not so beautiful as they are now. It seems as if I could compel the vineyards to grow green at once."

As he was walking with Eric along the river bank, he suddenly stood still and said,--

"Hark, how the waves plash against the shore! Just so have they rippled and plashed day and night when I was not here. Would it not be beautiful to plunge into the waves and swim? Does not the rippling tempt you too? It seems to me we did it centuries ago."

The boy had awaked to new life, and thoughts and feelings came bubbling ceaselessly from his heart, as from an ever running fountain. He delighted in having the people he met tell him how tall he had grown, and how like a man he was looking.

Eric listened patiently to all his outpourings; the boy was tasting the double pleasure of returning health and the opening spring.

"The hen cackles for herself and the cock," he exclaimed, the first time he heard a hen; "and I am sure it is as beautiful a sound to them, as the song of the nightingale is to us. Don't you think our barnyard hen makes a great deal more noise over the laying of an egg than her wild sisters? No female of all the wild birds of the forest sings; the hen is the only one. Do look at the grass; how beautifully green it is, and the hedgerows there! The green leaves and buds would like to pop out all of a sudden and cry, Here we are!"

So he chattered on, like a grateful child.

Only a little at a time could the studies be resumed. Eric observed a certain depression in his mother, which might be the result of her anxiety for Roland, whose illness naturally recalled to her that of her own son, or of her constant care for the poor in the neighborhood, whose calls for help were increasing as their winter stores were getting exhausted. Roland was desirous of sharing these cares with her, and of being allowed to take some of the gifts himself; but the mother would not permit it. He was not ready for that yet, she said; he must first come to be a strong man himself, able to carry out his own great lifework.

Roland complained that he did not see the need of so many having to suffer want, when there was enough in the world to satisfy everybody. Eric and his mother had to reason with him, or he would have cursed wealth as a misfortune and an injustice. But the elasticity of youth came to their aid, and the boy soon forgot how much misery there was in the world, and contented himself with the objects immediately about him.

Sonnenkamp was very happy, too, for Eric and Roland took an active interest in the cultivation of the trees, and he could be their teacher.

"You will experience, as I have," he often said, "that the greatest pleasure in the world, is to watch the growth of a tree of your own planting."

The buds were swelling in the garden, while across the river, and over the fields, floated an aromatic breath of spring, a fragrance as if the air had blown over vast, invisible beds of violets. Within the house was a cheerfulness that had never been known there before. Even Frau Ceres could not escape its influence, for Roland shed about him a constant atmosphere of joy, that infected all who came in contact with him. He had, moreover, now, as he confided to the Professorin, a project in his head, of which he would not betray, even to her, the exact nature. On the anniversary of his birthday, which was also that of Eric's arrival, he meant to prepare for everybody such a joyful surprise as they never would guess.

The grass and the blossoms had come forth in the garden, the birds were singing, and the boats sailing merrily up and down the river, when, on the day preceding Roland's birthday, a note was found in his room, saying that the family must not be uneasy about him, for he would return the next day, bringing something most beautiful with him.

Upon inquiry, it appeared that Roland had set off with Lootz for the convent.

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XII. ORESTES AND IPHIGENIA

Two steamers, one bound for the valley, the other for the mountains, were standing in the stream at a little distance from the island. In the one bound for the valley was Roland. In answer to his impatient question why they did not land, the captain silently pointed to the island, where a procession of priests and nuns were following a bier covered with flowers, and borne by girls dressed in white. The voices of children, as they sang, rose on the clear Spring air. Roland's heart trembled; what if his sister----?

"It must be a little child," said an elderly man standing near him; "the bier is so small; those young girls could not carry it otherwise."

Roland breathed more freely; he knew his sister must be among the mourners.

He had landed, and was standing on the bank beside the boatman, who was to row him over to the island. The man shook his head and said softly:--

"Not yet, not yet; but perhaps you are a relation of the child?"

"What child?"

"A little child has died in the convent; oh, such a beautiful child! it made one happy only to look at her. The Lord God will have to make but little change to turn her into an angel."

"How old was she?"

"Seven, or eight at the most. Hark, there they come!"

The bells rang out into the Spring air, the smoke of the incense ascended, as the procession moved along the shore.

The boatman took off his hat, and prayed with folded hands. Roland, too, stood with uncovered head, and with a sudden shock he thought: Thus might I have been borne to the grave. Such a weakness came over him that he was obliged to sit down; he kept his eyes fixed upon the island; the procession went on, then disappeared, and all was still.

Now they were sinking the young body in the ground; the birds sang, no breath of air stirred, a steamboat came towards the mountain; all was like the figures in a dream.

The procession came in sight again, singing, and vanished through the open doors of the convent.

"So," said the boatman, putting on his hat, "now I will row you across."

But Roland, unwilling to surprise his sister before she had had time to rest and compose herself, asked to be allowed to remain a while longer on the shore. It was well he did, for no one in the convent so felt a part of her very self taken from her, as Manna. Dear little Heimchen had held out for a whole year, seeming to grow more cheerful, and making good progress in her studies, but in the Spring she faded, like a tenderly nurtured flower too early exposed to the cold.

Devotedly, day and night. Manna nursed the child, who with her was always happy. A foretaste of heaven seemed granted little Heimchen; she looked forward to it as to a Christmas holiday, and often said to Manna that she should tell God, and all the angels in heaven, about her. The next moment she would beg Manna to tell her about Roland.

"I saw him running with his bow and arrows, and oh, he was so beautiful!"

Then Manna told about Roland, and could always make Heimchen laugh by describing how his little pups tumbled one another over and over. The physician, and the hospital nun, who was almost a doctor herself, urged Manna to take more rest, but she was strong, and never left her post. In Manna's arms the child died, and her last words were:--

"Good-morning, Manna, it is no longer night now."

Manna's experience had been manifold. She had seen a novice assume the dress of the order, and had seen a fellow pupil enter her novitiate; yet was it all only a strong, free, joyful self-sacrifice. Now she had witnessed the death of a child, a little human being, dropping softly and silently from the tree of life, as a blossom falls from the stem.

It was Manna who, at the lower end of the bier, had helped to bear the child to the grave, and thrown three handfuls of earth upon the coffin. She did not shed a tear until the priest described how the child had been called from the earth, as a father might summon his child from a play-ground where it was in danger, and keep it safe in his home; then she wept bitterly.

On leaving the cemetery, she went once more to Heimchen's empty bed, and there prayed God that she might enter into eternity as pure as that little child. Then she grew composed, feeling the time could not be far distant when, after a short return to the excitement of the world, the great Father of all would summon her away from this play-ground into his sheltering mansions. She seemed already to hear voices from the noisy world without, calling her once more to return to it. She must obey them, but made a firm resolve faithfully to return into this, her one, only home.

She descended to the island, and took her seat under the pine-tree where she had so often worked. There was the little bench on which Heimchen had sat close by her side, almost at her feet. Manna sat here long, trying to imagine the distractions which life could bring to her in this one year, but she did not succeed. Her thoughts would return to Heimchen, and she found herself trying to follow the young soul into the eternity of Heaven.

Suddenly she heard steps, and looking up saw before her a youth who was like Roland, only much taller, and more manly. She could not stir from her seat.

"Manna, Manna, come to me!" cried the boy.

She rose, and with a loud cry, brother and sister fell into one another's arms.

"Sit down by me," said Manna at last. They sat together upon the bench beneath the pine-tree, and Manna, pointing to the smaller bench, told of Heimchen, and of her often wanting to hear stories about Roland, and when she came to tell how the child had died of homesickness, she suddenly exclaimed:--

"Our whole life, Roland, is nothing but homesickness for our heavenly home; of that we die, and happy is he who dies of it."

Roland perceived that his sister was in a state of overwrought excitement, amounting almost to ecstasy; and speaking in a tone of quiet and manly decision, he told her that she must first come back to her earthly home. He told her of his having acted in a play, and having been photographed in his page's silk dress; of the order his father had received; and, finally, of a secret his father had confided to him, and which he could not tell.

"Our father told you a secret?" asked Manna, her face growing rigid.

"Yes, and a beautiful, noble one; you will rejoice with me when you hear it."

Manna's features relaxed.

Roland told her how he had fancied himself with her all through his delirium, and that she ought to feel only happy at his being still alive.

"Yes, you are still alive," cried Manna, "you shall live. All is yours."

He reminded her that to-morrow was his birthday, and that his own wish was that she would let him take her to their parents on that day.

"Yes, I will go with you," cried Manna, "and it is better we should go directly."

Hand in hand, the brother and sister went to the convent, where Manna told the Superior of her intention to go home with Roland. In a state of feverish excitement, she then hurried to bid good-bye to all her fellow pupils, and all the nuns, went into the church and prayed, and finally made Roland go with her to Heimchen's grave.

Roland observed a long, straight row of gravestones without inscriptions, and, on asking Manna about them, was told they marked the graves of the nuns.

"That is hard," said Roland, "to have to be nameless after death."

"It is but natural," returned Manna; "whoever takes the veil lays aside her family name and assumes a sacred one, which is hers until her death, and then another bears it."

"I understand." said Roland. "That is giving up a great deal. The name of the nun cannot be written on the gravestone, nor the family name either; yet there must be a great many of noble family buried here."

"Yes, indeed; almost all were noble."

"What should you say if we should be noble too?"

"Roland, what do you mean?" cried Manna, seizing him violently by the arm. "Can you speak of such a thing here and now? Come away; such thoughts are a desecration to the graves."

She led him out of the little burial-place and as far as the gravel path, when, suddenly leaving him, she turned once more to the cemetery and knelt down by the grave; then she rejoined her brother.

Lootz was standing with the luggage ready; Manna stepped into the boat with Roland, and the brother and sister were borne up the stream toward their home. All in the boat gazed with a pleased curiosity at the pair, who, however, sat quietly hand in hand, looking out upon the broad landscape.

"Tell me," urged Roland, "why you said, when you were going to that convent, that you, too, were an Iphigenia?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Oh yes, you can; I know all about her. I have read the Iphigenia of Euripides, and of Goethe, too, by myself and with Eric, and you are like neither of them."

"It was only---- ah, let us forget all about it."

"Do you know," cried Roland, "that Iphigenia became the wife of the great hero Achilles and lived with him, on the island of Leuce, in eternal blessedness?"

Manna confessed her ignorance, and Roland described the copy of the Pompeian fresco that Eric's mother had showed him, where Calchas, the priest, is holding the knife, Diomedes and Odysseus are bearing Iphigenia to the altar, and, her father, Agamennon, hides his face, while, at the command of Artemis, one of the nymphs leads in the stag that is to be sacrificed in Iphigenia's place.

"How many things you have learned," smiled Manna.

"And Eric told me," continued Roland, "that the sacrifice of Iphigenia was just like that of Isaac, and all the other sacrifices we read about."

Manna's face darkened; that was the foundation of a fatal heresy.

"Stop, now I have it," cried Roland. "Ah, that is good! There are still oracles in the world. Orestes had to fetch his sister from the temple of Tauris, where she was priestess. That is it! You divined it! That will delight Eric; ah! how it will delight him! But stay! When Iphigenia and her brother were on board ship I am sure he must have played off all sorts of silly tricks to amuse her, and I am sure she laughed. Have you quite forgotten how to laugh? You used to laugh so merrily, just like a wood-pigeon. Do laugh just once."

He laughed with his whole heart, but Manna remained unmoved, and, during the way, sat buried in her own thoughts. Only once, when the boat came to a sudden stop in the middle of the stream, she asked:--

"What is that?"

"That is the very question I asked Eric when we were going up the river together, and he showed me up there a heavily-laden freight vessel, which would be overturned and sunk by the commotion of the water, if our steamer did not moderate its speed. Oh, there is nothing he does not know, and then he said: Remember. Roland, that we should do the same thing in life; we must not rush on our own way, but must think of the heavily-laden voyagers on the stream of life with us, and take care that the waves we raise do not overwhelm them."

Manna stared at her brother. She could trace the influence of a man who used the actual as a symbol of the ideal, and she became herself, in a measure, conscious of that power which in every outward aspect of life seeks and finds the underlying thought. She shook her head, and opening her breviary, began diligently to read it.

"See the sunlight on the glass cupola," cried Roland, as it grew late in the afternoon. "That is home. Perhaps they have guessed at home that you are coming back with me."

"Home, home," breathed Manna softly to herself; the word sounded strange to her on her own lips, as it had done from Roland's. She closed her eyes, as if dazzled by the reflection on the glass cupola.

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XIII. NOTHING BUT EYES

Two carriages were waiting at the landing. Manna received the embraces and kisses of her father without returning them, and watched, in apparent terror, the receding steamer, which, after quickly landing its passengers, went swiftly on its way.

"Your mother is in the carriage," said Sonnenkamp, offering Manna his arm. She laid her hand timidly upon it, allowed herself to be led to the glass carriage, in which sat Frau Ceres and Fräulein Perini, and, taking her seat beside her mother, embraced her passionately.

Sonnenkamp and Roland entered the other carriage, and all drove toward the villa. The father muttered something to himself about not having heard the sound of his daughter's voice.

"Where is Eric?" asked Roland.

"In the green cottage with his mother. It was considerate on the part of a stranger to retire to his own relations at such a time, and leave the family alone."

Roland was struck by the words. Were Eric and his family strangers?

On arriving at the villa, Fräulein Perini also withdrew hastily, and went to the Priest's house, whence a messenger was soon despatched to the telegraph station.

The parents were alone with their children, but there seemed a chill in the room which banished all feeling of quiet and comfort.

Sonnenkamp and Roland took Manna to her room, where she was pleased to find everything in its old place, and, at sight of the open fire-place filled with beautiful growing plants, turned to her father and thanked him, offering him her hand for the first time, and kissing his; but she could not repress a shudder at touching the ring on his thumb.

When Roland was left alone with his sister, he urged her to visit his grandmother and aunt that very day; but Manna reproved him for giving such names to persons not really related to him.

"Ah, but you must love them too," said Roland.

"Must? One can love nobody upon compulsion. Let me tell you, Roland-- but no; there is no need."

She yielded at last to his persuasions, and went with him through the new gateway in the garden wall, along the meadows by the shore.

"There goes Eric; I will call him. Eric! Eric!" cried Roland in a loud voice.

The figure did not turn, however, but kept on, and presently disappeared among the shrubbery.

Roland and Manna found the Professorin waiting for them upon the steps, and Manna received a hearty welcome.

"He gave me no peace till I consented to come to you," said Manna.

"So he makes you mind like the rest of us, does he?" said the lady with mock severity. "Let me tell you, my dear child, that I know this wild boy has said a great deal to you about me, and would like to force you to love me; but even the best intentioned urgency in such matters should be avoided. Glad as I shall be if we can be good friends, we yet will not be forced upon each other."

Manna looked in amazement on the Mother, who asked a great many questions about the convent, and advised her to remain much alone, as the sudden change from a life of seclusion to one of excitement might injure her habits of thought, as well as her health.

Manna felt herself cheered by intercourse with this quiet, composed, harmonious nature; only the room looked strange to her with no images of saints about. Her attention was attracted by the sewing-machine, and the Mother had readily consented to instruct her in the use of it when Aunt Claudine entered, whose dignified bearing interested Manna even more than the Mother had done.

"You and Aunt Claudine," exclaimed Roland, "have two things in common. She is a star gazer like you, and plays the harp as you do."

Aunt Claudine did not require much urging, but willingly played Manna a piece on the harp.

"I shall be very grateful if you will accept me as a pupil," said Manna offering her hand; and the beautiful nervous hand which grasped hers gave her more pleasure by its touch, than she had found in the soft little plump one of the Professorin.

When it grew evening, the Mother and Aunt set out with Roland and Manna towards the villa, Manna walking with the Aunt, and Roland with the Professorin. On the way Eric met them.

"At last!" cried Roland. "Now, Manna, here he is; here you have him."

Manna and Eric exchanged formal bows.

"Why don't you speak? Have you both lost your tongue? Eric, this is my sister Manna; Manna, this is my friend, my brother, my Eric."

"Don't be excited, Roland," said Eric, and there was a ringing tone in his voice that made Manna involuntarily raise her eyes to him. "Yes, Fräulein, this is the second time I have met you in the twilight."

Manna almost began to say that she had seen him once in broad daylight, when she had not spoken to him, but had heard inspiring notes from him; but she checked herself and pressed her lips together. Roland broke the pause that ensued, by saying urgently:--

"Come into the house; then you will see one another by lamplight. It is just a year ago, this hour, since I ran away; can it be only a year? Ah, Manna, you cannot imagine how many hundred years I have lived through in this one. I am as old as the hills, as old as that laughing Sprite the groom told me about."

He repeated the story to his two willing listeners. When he had ended, Eric announced his intention of staying till the next day with his mother, for every one who was not a blood relation was a stranger at such a time as this. Roland would hear nothing of his being a stranger, but Manna's eyes as they gleamed in the darkness seemed to grow larger.

At the new gateway the party divided, Roland and his sister going to the villa, and Eric returning to the green cottage with his mother and aunt. For the second time he had seen Manna, and for the second time she had seemed nothing but eyes.

How strange that this man should look like the picture of Saint Anthony, thought Manna, when she was alone in her room; there seemed to me no point of resemblance between them; some passing look of his, an expression of his eyes, must have reminded Roland of the picture; she too had seen nothing of Eric but his tall figure and his eyes.

She knelt long in prayer, and as she took off her clothes afterwards, she drew more tightly round her waist a girdle--only a little cord it was, which one of the nuns had given her--so tightly that it cut into her flesh.

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XIV. A MORNING GIFT

Before daylight Roland was at Eric's bedside, and waked him, saying:--

"I will go with you to-day."

Eric could not think what the boy meant, till he reminded him of his having said that he ought, at least once every year, to go up on some hill and see the sun rise. Eric remembered saying so, and, hastily putting on his clothes, they walked together up a neighboring eminence. A year ago that morning, Roland said he had for the first time seen the sun rise; then he was alone, now with a friend.

"Let us keep silent," advised Eric. They looked towards the east, and saw the light gradually appear. A new light dawned in Roland's mind; he saw that all the splendor and glory of the world is nothing, compared with the light which belongs alike to all. The richest can make for himself nothing higher than the sunlight, which shines for the poorest in his hovel; the fairest and the highest belongs to all mankind.

Roland fell into a sort of ecstasy, and Eric with difficulty refrained from pressing him to his heart. He was happy, for the sun had risen in Roland, the sun of thought which can never set; clouds may obscure it, but it stands and shines for ever.

The two descended to the river, and bathed joyfully in it under the early light, and to each the water was as a new baptism. The bells were ringing as they returned to the villa, and in the distance they saw Manna going to church.

Herr Sonnenkamp also had risen early, and paid a morning visit to the Professorin.

"I have followed your good advice," he said, "and made Roland no present to-day. Your account of the way in which royal children keep their birthday was charming; they are not to receive, but to give. I have followed your suggestions in every particular, and given Roland nothing but the means and opportunity of bestowing upon others; I owe you double thanks for allowing me to take the entire credit of the idea. Any approach to untruthfulness is distasteful to me, but for my son's sake, I venture to practice a little deception to-day."

The lady pressed her lips together. Here was this man, whose whole life was a lie, trying to pass himself off for a man of truth! But she had already taught herself not to be always inquiring too closely into the motives of good deeds. She asked about the presents that Roland was to distribute, and finally yielded to Sonnenkamp's desire that she should accompany him to the villa.

As they approached the door, a carriage drove up from which jumped Pranken. He had come, he said, because it was Roland's birthday, and expressed great pleasure at hearing that Manna also had arrived: Fräulein Perini's telegram he thought it needless to mention. As he stood upon the terrace overlooking the Rhine, he saw Manna walking up and down not far off with a little book in her hand, and could perceive the motion of her lips as she repeated the words from it.

Fräulein Perini soon appeared, and exchanged a few whispered words with Pranken. Great was her pride at having frustrated the cunningly woven plans of this Professor's family, which so plumed itself on its lofty sense of honor. There was no doubt in her mind that the idea of bringing Manna from the convent had originated with Eric, and she saw further evidence of his plotting, in the girl's having been taken to the green cottage on the very evening of her arrival, and returning delighted with the whole family, especially with Aunt Claudine. With a knowing look at Pranken, Fräulein Perini slyly remarked that the Aunt was kept as a reserve to be brought to bear upon Manna, but she hoped that Pranken and herself would be able to hold the field.

At last Manna herself came upon the terrace, and again offered her left hand to Pranken, as in the right she held her prayer-book. She thanked him cordially for his congratulations that this beautiful spring morning found no blossom wanting on the family tree, and, as he undertook to read what was in her mind, and interpret her feelings at finding herself once more under her father's roof, she said quietly:--

"It is a tent which is spread and folded again."

With great tact Pranken seized upon the expression; he was sufficiently familiar with the ecclesiastical manner of speaking, to be able to construct the whole contingent of meditation and reflection, from which this single remark had been thrown like a solitary soldier on a reconnoissance. He talked with no little eloquence of our pilgrimage through the desert of life, until we reached the promised land, adding that the old man in us must die, for only the new man was worthy to possess the land of promise.

There was a certain conversational fluency in Pranken's manner of speaking which at first repelled Manna, but she seemed pleased, upon the whole, to find this carefully trained, versatile man at home in this sphere of thought. The fact of his belonging to the church, and therefore living among the same ideas with herself, seemed to form a bond of attraction between them. When at length he drew out of his pocket the Thomas à Kempis she had given him, and told her that to that he owed whatever of good was in him, she cast down her eyes, and, laying her hand upon the book, said hurriedly, as she heard the voices of the Professorin and the Major approaching: "Pray put the book back, away."

Pranken obeyed, and while his eyes were fixed upon Manna, kept his hand pressed on the book, which lay against his heart. This common secret established a degree of intimacy at once between himself and the pure, reserved girl.

The Major examined Manna as he would have done a recruit, making her turn round and round, and walk this way and that, that he might judge of her way of moving, all which evolutions Manna went through with great good humor.

"Yes, yes," he said at length, extending the forefinger of his left hand, as he always did when about to bring forth a piece of wisdom; "yes, yes; when it works well, it is all right. Yes, yes; Herr Sonnenkamp, when it works well, it is right, this sending a young man into the army and a young woman into a convent, for a while. When it works well, it is all right."

All nodded assent, and the Major was enchanted at having begun the day by saying a good thing. But he soon changed his tone to one of complaint at Roland's absence; he did not deserve his happiness, keeping out of the way on such an anniversary as this, such a beautiful spring day, too, that if they had ordered it expressly it could not have been finer. He was just about to relate the fearful adventure in the special train, which took place just a year ago that very day, when Roland and Eric at last appeared.

Manna embraced her brother affectionately, as did Pranken also, but Roland quickly disengaged himself from the latter's grasp, and said to Manna:--

"Shake hands with Herr Eric too, for this is his birthday amongst us. A year ago to-day he became mine, or I his; did you not, Eric? Give him your hand."

Manna offered Eric her hand, and for the first time the two looked one another full in the face, in the broad daylight.

"Thank you for the kindness you have shown my brother," said Manna.

Eric was much struck by Manna's appearance; she seemed to him a wonderful mixture of gentle melancholy and lofty pride; her features expressed a cold indifference; her motions were full of grace; there was a bewitching softness in her voice, but mingled with a tone of sadness.

Without knowing or wishing it, Manna became the central point of attraction; even on this fête-day of Roland's, all seemed to turn to her.

Presently the party adjourned to the great hall, where were Eric's mother and aunt, Fräulein Perini and Frau Ceres. Frau Ceres had such fear of the morning air that all the windows were tight shut. She was yawning when Roland entered, but embraced and kissed him. The Professorin also embraced him, saying:--

"I wish you happiness; that is, I wish for you a constantly growing appreciation of the happiness that has been granted you, and a knowledge how to use it."

Sonnenkamp shrugged his shoulders at these words, and said to Pranken, by whom he was standing:--

"How this woman is always trying to say something out of the common course! She has actually forgotten at last how to say a simple good-morning."

"Let us be thankful," rejoined Pranken, "that she has not yet remarked,--As my departed husband, Professor Mummy, used to say."

The two men spoke without any change of expression, so that no one heard or observed them.

Upon a great table lay a number of packages, each inscribed with a name. The Professorin, with Fräulein Milch, had made a list of the boys in the neighborhood of Roland's own age, who were to have presents given them on his birthday. They were mostly apprentices about to set out on their travels, laborers on the Rhine boats, or in the vineyards: some poor and needy persons had also been thought of, and for every one a suitable gift was provided. In the middle of the table lay a large envelope which Sonnenkamp had hastily placed there on his entrance, and on which was written: "For my friend and teacher. Captain Doctor Eric Dournay."

Roland's quick eye soon discovered the envelope, and he handed it to Eric, who, on opening it, found a package of banknotes to a considerable amount. His hand trembled; for a moment he looked about him, then replaced the bills in the envelope, and advancing to Sonnenkamp, who was standing by Manna and Pranken, and had just spoken some words in a low tone to the latter, held the envelope towards him, and, in a voice so agitated that he could scarcely enunciate a word, begged him to take back his gift.

"No, no; do not thank me; it is I who should thank you."

Eric's eyes were cast to the ground, but he raised them and said,--

"Excuse me, I have never in my life accepted any present, and am unwilling--"

"A man of independence like you," interrupted Pranken, "should waste no words on the matter. Take the gift as cordially as it was given."

He spoke as one of the family, almost as if he had presented the money himself. Eric stood abashed, not knowing how to refuse the gift without seeming ungrateful and over delicate. As his eyes fell upon Manna, a pang shot through his heart at the thought of having to appear before her, on this first morning, as a needy receiver of money. He looked at her as if imploring her to speak to him, but she kept silent; seeing no other course open for him, he drew back the hand which held the package, and soon after disappeared from the room.

Without, in the park, he walked thoughtfully to and fro for a while, then, sitting down on the bench where Bella had sat, opened the envelope and counted the money; it amounted to a sum large enough to support a moderate family. As he sat there dreaming and unconscious, holding the envelope between his two hands, and deaf to the song of the birds in the trees and shrubs about him, his name was suddenly called, and the servant Joseph handed him a letter from Professor Einsiedel, congratulating him upon the anniversary, and admonishing him to earn money enough to enable him to lead an independent life, wholly devoted to pure science. The Professor repeated his wish, that there might be some place of retreat established for the reception of men of science in their old age.

Greatly comforted, Eric returned to the company in the drawing-room, who had scarcely missed him.

"That is the way with these idealists, these reformers, these priests of humanity," said Pranken to Sonnenkamp. "See how the Doctor looks as if he had got wings! Yes, that is the way with them. They despise money, till they have it themselves."

Pranken had observed aright. Eric did in truth feel himself endowed with a new power, but also the thought arose in him: Now you too are rich, and can care for others besides yourself. Observing, presently, that he was keeping his hand upon the breast-pocket which contained the money, he drew it away as if it had been upon coals.

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XV. A FEAST WITH UNEXPECTED DISHES

The Major and Roland set out upon the performance of a most pleasant office. They had the pony harnessed to the little wagon, in which all the packages were put, and drove through the hamlets, stopping at the various houses, and personally distributing the gifts. First of all they drove to Claus's, in whom the last winter had worked a great change. After the first expressions of sympathy had been received from his neighbors, and he had once washed down all thought and care with a good drink, he took to mitigating his troubles by the all-obliterating wine, or by brandy, if he could get no better. His wife and children were in despair at this change in him, and once the family came to hard words, the Cooper having heard that his father had been begging of a stranger from the other side of the mountains, and complaining of having been ruined by a rich man.

The Gauger and the Burgomaster were amused with Claus's complaints and fierce invectives, his jokes and wise sayings, and supplied him with liquor.

When Roland and the Major arrived at this man's house, it was evident, even at that early hour of the morning, that he had been drinking. Roland was much shocked, but the Major said,--

"Oh, you should not think anything of that. The man drinks too much, but only too much for his own stomach. Where is the harm? If a man is made happy by a glass of wine too much, do let him enjoy it."

The Major's words and Roland's inward happiness soon effaced all recollection of this first meeting. From Claus's they went to Sevenpiper's, where was rejoicing beyond measure.

Roland said, again and again, that this day was the happiest he had ever passed; and the Major impressed upon him that he must not throw his good deeds into the empty air, but accept the good wishes and blessings of those he had relieved from suffering and care.

"Fräulein Milch," he added, "has a good saying, which should be inscribed in the temple: The happiest hour is that which follows the performance of a good deed. Write that in your heart, my boy."

The dogs jumped about the wagon, and Roland cried out to them,--

"Do you too know that this is my happiest day? You poor beasts, I can give you nothing but food; you want neither clothes nor money."

Out of one house Roland came flying, pale as death.

"What has happened to you?" asked the Major.

"Oh, let us get away from here, away!" urged the youth in terror. "I tremble all over, now, at what was done to me. If I had been attacked by robbers, I could not have been more frightened."

"But what was it? Tell me what it was!"

"The old man, whom I brought the clothes and money for, wanted to kiss my hand; that old man--my hand! I thought I should die, I was so frightened. And are you laughing at it?"

"I am not laughing; you were quite right."

The Major looked upon this sensitiveness as one of the results of the nervous fever, and said after a while,--

"Your father has planted a great many trees, and when one thrives he calls it a grateful tree. Do you know what the most grateful tree is? The tree of knowledge and good works."

While Roland's heart was thus swelling with the joy of health and well-doing, Eric was in great depression. He had given his mother Professor Einsiedel's letter, and, sitting beside her, told her how this had comforted him for a while, but that now he was again in a state of great uncertainty, because his relation to Sonnenkamp must henceforth be one of painful dependence; till now he had occupied a free and equal position with regard to him, but now he had received favors, received a gift of money, and had lost his independence.

His mother listened patiently to the end, and then asked,--

"Do you hesitate to accept this gift because it comes from Herr Sonnenkamp? Why not as readily or as reluctantly as from any one else, from Clodwig, for instance?"

She put the question eagerly, thinking she perceived that Eric, as well is herself, was aware of Sonnenkamp's past life; but she was soon assured that he had no suspicion of it, by his replying,--

"Friendship gives differently, and makes it seem hardly a gift; from a friend like Clodwig, I could accept anything."

His mother told him he should consider that the money came from Roland, whose coming of age was only anticipated. But that idea troubled Eric too: it made him feel that he was sent away, paid off; the account was squared between them. His mother reminded him, for his consolation, that no outward pay could compensate for the labor, the burning cheek, the trembling nerves, the planning and thinking by day and by night, which the education of a human being requires. Finally, Eric confessed that it mortified him to have to accept presents before Pranken, and Manna too, the daughter of the house.

"Pranken and Manna are one," answered his mother, "she is his betrothed. But take comfort; look back over the past year, and you will see that you have developed in your pupil a character which nothing can undermine."

This thought finally enabled Eric to rise above all his depression, and when he left his mother's house he had spirit enough to exclaim:--

"Look at Eric, old Father Rhine; he is become an independent man, and can live upon his interest till he is seventy-seven years old!"

He met Roland and the Major returning from their round of visits. It was not for nothing that the Major carried always two watches about with him, one of which he called his galloper because it was always fast; the only difficulty was, he could never tell whether he had put the galloper in his right or left pocket; however, he was on hand again punctually at dinner-time.

Roland sat at the richly furnished table, but tasted scarcely a morsel.

"I am so full," he said to Eric, "so full of the great happiness I have given to-day. And you--are you not happy too?"

Eric could truly say he was.

There was some discussion as to who should propose the customary toast for Roland; whether it was for Eric or Pranken to do.

Both at length urged the duty upon the Major, who rose and said,--

"Gentlemen and ladies!"

"Bravo!" cried Pranken.

"Thank you," said the Major, "Interrupt me as often as you will; I have learned to take flying leaps, and every obstacle gives me a chance for a higher bound. Once more, ladies and gentlemen! the human race is divided into male and female."

General laughter, which delighted the Major.

"Here you behold a pair in the garden of Eden--"

"Perhaps you would like this to complete your picture?" said Pranken, handing the Major an apple.

Roland was indignant with Pranken for interfering so often, and begged the Major not to let himself be confused by it.

"Be easy, my boy," said the Major in a low voice; "I can stand fire."

Then he continued aloud:--

"So we have here two children, the daughter of the house and the son of the house; and the children have us. They have their parents; they have a grandmother and an aunt by election, and here,"--giving himself a ringing blow on his chest,--"here they have an uncle. We love them as if they were our own blood, and they love us, do they not, children?"

"Yes!" cried Roland, and Manna nodded.

"So then, if I had a son--no, I don't mean that--if I had a teacher for this son of mine--no, I did not mean that either--So, then, our wild rover there--see, he has already a growth upon his face--may the Architect of the universe bless him, and let him grow to be a man who shall understand what is true happiness for himself, for others, for his brethren of all faiths, for all the descendants of man upon the earth."

Amen, he was about to say, but corrected himself, and cried:--"His health, again and again, his health."

The Major sat down, and unbuttoned several buttons behind his napkin.

Sonnenkamp spoke next, and in happily chosen language proposed a toast to Eric, his mother, and his aunt.

"You must speak too; you must speak too," the Major kept urging upon Eric.

Eric rose, and with a light and cheerful tone began:--

"Two things may be particularly noticed, which the Old World has given to the New World of America--the horse and wine. The horse is not a native of America, neither is wine. Germans first planted vineyards in the New World. Two natural objects, therefore, which enlarge the scope of human strength and intellect, we have presented to the New World. I leave out of consideration the kingdom of ideas. My toast is this: May our Roland, who comes to us from the New World, be borne onward and animated by the rich powers beyond himself, to great and noble ends!" He raised his glass with enthusiasm, the sunlight sparkled in the wine, and pointing to it he continued:

"The sun of to-day greets the sun of a past age. What we drink is the offspring of departed days, and what we receive into our soul has ripened in the sun of eternity. Each one of us should be a fruit that shall ripen and live on in the sun of eternity, as God lives in humanity, and in the stars, and in the trees and plants. Holy is the world, and holy should we make ourselves. We are not our own, and what we have is not our own. What we are and what we have belong to the Eternal. My Roland, the bright, smiling, sunny light of this day which is gilding the earth will be turned to the fire of the wine, which after resting and ripening in well sealed casks, in the cool earth, shall presently be carried to strangers through all the lands, to animate and penetrate them with its sunlight. So shall the sun of to-day become fire in our souls, which shall burn brightly through the cold and desolate days that may be in store. May that ripen in you, my Roland, which shall quicken your soul, and rejoice mankind, and convert all life into the free and beautiful temple of God."

Eric's eye encountered a glance from Manna's, as he sat down. She beheld him as it were for the first time. His face wore an expression of ideality, of spirituality, which seemed to subdue all passion, and a look of such manly decision as made her feel, If, in danger, I had this man by my side, I should have an all-sufficient help. But she needed no help.

Sonnenkamp and Pranken shrugged their shoulders at the conclusion of Eric's speech, and had to repress a laugh which was provoked by Sonnenkamp's whispering to his neighbor,--

"The man almost seems to believe what he says."

A diversion was here made by the arrival of the Doctor, and of the Justice's Lina, who was eager to greet her friend upon her "return to life," as she called it. All arose from the table in excellent spirits.

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XVI. ABOUT ANOTHER AND FOR ANOTHER

The Doctor kept close watch upon the behavior of the girls, and listened to their conversation. Manna expressed her thanks for her friend's kind attention, but preserved all the while in her manner a certain reserve, an indescribable something, the result of that life in the convent which to Lina had been productive of nothing but an acquaintance with foreign languages.

The Doctor afterwards expressed to the Professorin, as they were walking back and forth together in the garden, great curiosity to know whether worldly wisdom would succeed in triumphing over the influence of the Church, and also his regret that she herself was not a Catholic, as in that case her task would be much easier. But the lady remained firm in her decision to exert no influence whatever on Manna; she was not only not required by her duty to do so, but would actually have no right, Manna being betrothed to Pranken.

"Who knows?" replied the Doctor, "who knows? The Huguenots not only went into exile themselves; their example made others emigrate: and often our influence is greatest when it is quite unintentional."

Sonnenkamp wished Lina to spend some of these Spring weeks with his daughter, and Manna had no alternative but to second the invitation. Lina accepted, on condition of obtaining her parents' consent, and returned with the Doctor to be sent for the next day.

Pranken, who remained through the evening, was rejoiced at Manna's confiding to him that she had already painfully experienced the world's temptation to want of truthfulness; for that, to speak with perfect candor, she did not desire a visit from Lina, and yet she had been obliged to request it; that she thought was the great sin of the world, that it makes us false to ourselves.

Pranken hoped that Lina's visit would have an enlivening effect upon Manna; to begin with, however, he wanted to find out how she liked the Professorin. In approaching the subject he so carefully worded his remarks that if Manna should speak with enthusiasm he could fall in with it, and the same if she expressed dislike.

Manna repressed the confession that rose to her lips, that she felt herself already bewildered by the confusion that prevailed in the house, and longed for the well-ordered quiet of the convent, and merely complained of feeling so unlike herself in the world. But, when Pranken thanked her for this confidence, she recoiled and said, scarce above her breath, that the world made people talkative even when they wished to be reserved.

"I am glad to hear you speak of reserve," resumed Pranken, after a pause; "for our Archbishop enjoined it upon me lately in those very words. 'Be reserved,' he said; 'persons who speak much and readily are at bottom nothing but dilettanti.'"

He thought Manna would perceive at once that he was referring to Eric, but, as she gave no sign of applying the charge of dilettantism to him, Pranken spoke more openly and said:--

"Do you not perceive something of the dilettante in the very talkative Herr Eric?"

Manna answered shortly:--

"The man talks much, but----"

Here she made a long pause, and Pranken was in great suspense, wondering how she would finish her sentence.

"He talks much," she said, "but he thinks much too."

Pranken cast about for some turn he could give the conversation, which, with a skilful aim, could not fail to hit the mark. He might have spared himself his great pains, for a man whose activities extended over so much ground as Eric's offered many points of attack.

Pranken began by declaring Eric to be a kind of Don Quixote, a man who was always adventuring after great ideas, as in the case of the exaggerated sentiment of his toast. Disguising the cutting nature of his remarks under cover of gentle words, he attempted to turn Eric into ridicule. He thought it presumption in him, in the first place, to lay claim to any inward consecration as a cloak for his profanities, and finally went so far as to accuse him of passing off counterfeit coin, in the hope of deceiving a childlike, confiding mind. He looked keenly at Manna as he spoke, but she kept silence.

"Be on your guard," he added, "he plays the model man everywhere."

The expression seemed to please Pranken so well, that he ventured to repeat it.

"This playing the model man is very cunning, but we can see through it. You have no idea how much trouble this pattern of pedagogues, this Herr Dournay, has given us. You must be on your guard; his every word is stamped with the conviction, that he unites in his own person all possible examples of virtue."

Encouraged by a smile on Manna's face, which she tried in vain to suppress, Pranken continued:--

"After all, his eloquence is only that of the hairdresser, who talks of all kinds of things while he is curling your hair, only without setting up for so much scientific and religious aplomb. Observe how often he uses the word humanity; I counted it fourteen times, once, in a single hour. He affects great modesty, but his conceit actually exceeds all bounds."

Pranken laughed, knowing how easy it is to throw ridicule upon a man in the full tide of enthusiastic action; and with pleasure he perceived that his words were not without influence on Manna. If you can once set a man in a ridiculous light, there is no salvation for him. This, Pranken knew and hoped to accomplish in the present case; he, however, went on to say:--

"Our Roland has learned a great deal under this honorable gentleman, but he has had enough of him now; it is time he entered upon a wider sphere."

Manna preserved her thoughtful silence, and soon after walked away, occasionally, as she went towards the villa, nodding to herself as if assenting to what she had heard. Pranken looked after her in perplexity.

On the steps she met Eric, and both stopped. Eric felt obliged to say something, and therefore began,--

"I can imagine its being hard for you to have your first day at home a fête day; it will, perhaps, make the days that follow seem dull."

"How should you know what is passing in my thoughts?" replied Manna, as she went on up the steps.

She was indignant with the man for forgetting his position in the house, and taking upon himself to tell what was passing in her mind. What right had he to put into words what she did not choose to express? As she went up the steps, she pressed together in anger the lips which had spoken such cruel words; she was angry with herself too. But the words had been said, and could not be unsaid.

She spent the whole evening in her room. At a late hour Roland knocked at the door, and insisted on being admitted.

"Ah, sister," he said, as he sat down beside her, "of all I have been through to-day, one thing haunts me. Everybody to whom I gave a present said he would pray for me. How is that possible, and what good would it do? What good would it do to have another person pray for me, and say of me and wish for me before God all sorts of good things? Of what use would it be, if I were not in my own soul good and noble? No man can pray for another."

"Roland, what are you saying? What are you thinking of?" cried Manna, seizing him by both arms and shaking him; then, leaving the boy standing in amazement, she hurried into her chamber and threw herself upon her knees.

On this first day at home the ruin of her house was revealed to her. She prayed for Roland, that his mind might be enlightened and delivered from bondage, and even while she prayed, a feeling of strangeness stole over her. She wrung her hands, she groaned, she wept. Is it true that no one can stand in the place of another, can sacrifice himself for another? No, it is not,--it cannot be. She felt herself burdened, as by an actual weight from heaven, at the stirring of this great question, this great anxiety within her. Can a human being, then, do more harm than good to another? Is it so? Must it be so? There was a violent struggle in her soul; at last she smiled; a great conflict is appointed for me, she thought, and it is already beginning. She was to save the soul of her brother, and this, she told herself, could not be done by violence, but only by gentleness and humility.

She rose, and returning to the room where she had left Roland, held out her hand to him.

"I see," she said, "you are my grown-up brother; we must help one another to become better. We have much to give and to take from each other; that will come of itself."

She sat down quietly beside him, and held his hand tightly clasped in hers.

"How pleasant it must seem to you to be at home again!" exclaimed Roland. "The convent is no home for any one."

"For that very reason it is the best," returned Manna. "Every day, every hour reminds us that we have no home in this world; that our whole life is but a pilgrimage. If this world were our home, we should both have, you and I--no. You too tempt me to say, what I should not."

"Eric is right," said Roland. "He says you are truly pious; what millions speak only with their lips, you utter from your heart."

"Did Eric say that?"

"Yes, and much more."

"But, Roland," interrupted Manna, "you should, never tell what one person says of another."

"Not if it is good?"

"Not even then. We cannot tell on that very account--no," she interrupted herself; "are you not very happy in having so true a friend in Eric?"

"Indeed I am; and do you not like him better than Pranken?"

A smile rose to Manna's lips, but she repressed it and said,--

"Your teacher should also teach you never to make comparisons. But now, dear brother, remember that I have come from a convent, and need to be much alone. Good-night!" she added, kissing him.

"Remember," he called back to her as he departed, "that you must take your two dogs with you when you go to walk."

Manna was even yet not allowed to be alone. In the convent she had had no one to wait upon her, but here her father insisted on her having a maid to undress her.

The woman praised her beautiful black hair as she let it down.

"Ah, my Fräulein, you have what is so rare in these days, good, healthy hair. Would you believe, Fräulein, that almost all the hair we see on ladies' heads is false or padded? they wear a hat hidden under their hair."

And yet, thought Manna, this hair will fall. A sudden terror shot through her, as the maid passed her fingers through the loosened hair; she fancied that she already heard the clipping of the scissors.

At last Manna was alone. After devoting herself for some time to meditation and prayer, she began a letter to the Superior.

"We have celebrated to-day my birthday and my return to my parents' house; but I long for my own birthday, which shall be my entrance into the home of my Eternal Father--"

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I. THE GIANT'S TOY

The legend tells of that child-giant who took the ploughman, with plough and horse, to be a plaything, gathered them up in his apron, and carried them off.

This was the case with Manna. Her thoughts, by day and by night, had been so far removed from the world, so elevated, and so victorious over it, that all its doings seemed to her like children's plays. What is it all for? To pass away the time? Children succeed in that; they unconsciously persuade themselves that their dolls are alive; while children of a larger growth play with their dolls, but look upon them as shams.

Life is all idle play to them, and death alone is something serious.

It was with some such thought that Manna stood at the window, early on the morning after Roland's birthday; she saw nothing of the world, and yet she saw the whole world, far, far away.

So deeply impressed upon her memory were the tones of the convent-bell which had awakened the pupils at the first blush of dawn, that they had aroused her, this morning also, from her slumbers. She seemed to hear it ringing as she slept. It was some time before she realized where she was.

Thou art at home--where is thy home? who has built a house out of these stones, has made this bed?

In the villa all were still sleeping. Manna alone was awake, and with her the innumerable choirs of birds in the garden; and as the birds outside mingled together their twittering songs, so a thousand thoughts flitted through her mind.

She went into the park, and stood for a long time before the new gate that opened upon the path to the little green cottage. A voice within her seemed to say: Through this gate, and in this pathway, thou wilt have much to experience, much to struggle with, and much to overcome.

She wanted to find out, to image to herself what would enter there, but she succeeded no better than did Eric, as he gazed at the convent steps, in calling up before his mind's eye the various destinies of those who had passed in and out over that threshold.

Who would have been able to tell her that Eric had once gazed with the same feelings!

Manna had a feeling of unrest, as if she knew that an eye was watching her. Eric was now in fact standing at the window, and his glance rested upon her; but he took care to keep out of her sight. His soul too was moved, but by wholly different thoughts. While he was asleep, there was with him the abiding feeling that now he was possessed of ample means and was his own master; and this consciousness finally waked him. In the earliest dawn, he had again counted over the money which Sonnenkamp had handed him on the previous day. It was enough to support himself and his mother. He was so unaccustomed to money, that he felt impelled to count it several times over, and finally even to write down the amount. Then he smiled, saying to himself:--

It's well, and I am glad to be put to the test whether I can perform my duty in life with the same earnestness, poor or rich.

He opened the window and perceived Manna. He drew back softly, and wondered what were the feelings and thoughts of the child, who had come from the seclusion of the cloister into the luxurious parental home.

Sounds were now heard from the neighboring village, from all quarters, from both shores of the river, up and down the stream.

Manna left the park and turned back to the house in order to get her prayer-book. Fräulein Perini was waiting for her in the hall.

Manna heard Fräulein Perini give directions to the servants to make ready a room for the Justice's daughter, and she had it upon her lips to reproach herself to her former governess, for having been insincere in permitting Lina to be invited. She dreaded her visit; the superficial and childish character, as she had seen it the day before, seemed something new and strange. She had resolved to gain the victory by herself alone, and had come to the conclusion to ask Lina plainly not to make the visit at this time; she owed it to herself to remain alone, and to admit no distracting influence.

As she was going down the steps with Fräulein Perini, a letter was handed her, brought by a messenger, who was waiting for an answer. Lina wrote how much she regretted that she was not permitted to accept the hospitable invitation to Villa Eden. She besought Manna to send back a single word, containing the assurance that she was not angry with her.

Manna was glad that she could now reply without wounding the feelings of Lina, whose parents, she wrote, were in the right. On reading over again her friend's letter, it seemed strange to Manna that no sort of excuse was assigned. Do all the neighbors still hold aloof from her parents' house?

Perhaps so! Another parental home, yonder, extends its invitation.

The church bell again rang, and Manna went with Fräulein Perini to church.

Fräulein Perini was elated and happy. Others might attempt to win Manna with every variety of influence; she alone could go with her to church.

"Do you still prefer to be silent in the morning?" asked Fräulein Perini quietly, extending her hand.

Manna nodded without speaking. Not another word was interchanged.

When the mass was over, and they had left the church together, Fräulein Perini said that she would like to introduce Manna to the Priest, who had been stationed here during her absence.

Manna begged to go alone. She lingered a while, without moving from the spot, and then went to the Priest's house. She seemed to be expected, for the Priest came out on the steps to meet her, and welcomed her with a benediction. He led her by the hand into his room, hastily removing his breakfast from the table, on which there was an open book.

Manna was directed to take a seat on the sofa. She began:--

"Fräulein Perini wished to introduce me to you, Reverend Sir. That might be necessary with a man; a stranger, but you are not a man, a stranger, you are a servant of our holy Church."

The Priest partially closed his eyes, brought together the ends of the fingers of his handsome hands, then drew them apart, and said in a quiet and clear tone:--

"The right way! You are in the right way, my child, keep in it. So it is! Worldlings come into a place, they are strangers, strangers as if they were among savages, and they are ignorant whether there is a single person who cherishes the same thoughts with them; and there are no two people who have the same thoughts, even when the words are the same, and they have no bond of unity; they are like the mote dancing here in the sunbeam. But you, if you should enter the remotest village, you would be at home. There is a house, and within it is a man who welcomes you as a spiritual brother, as a father. He is not there of himself, but has been placed there by another; and you have not come of yourself, but have been led by another. You are doubly welcome, my child, for perceiving and realizing this immediately. You knock at my door, and it is open to you; and it will be open whenever you may come. You knock at my heart, and that is open to you, be sure of that. I have no house of my own; my house belongs to him who shall come after me, and not to him either, and my heart is His who has made it beat."

The Priest stopped speaking, and fixed his regard upon Manna, who had closed her eyes, as if she could not bear the sunlight, could not gaze at the countenance on which the Spirit was now descending. The Priest could see how deeply she was moved; he placed his hand in a friendly way upon her head, saying:--

"Look up at me. I repeat to you, that you have come alone, and you know why you have come alone; this spares us the necessity of coming to an understanding, as worldlings term it. Coming to an understanding!"

The Priest laughed.

"Coming to an understanding! and they never do understand each other, they, the cultivated, as they call themselves, or the self-cultivating, as they ought to call themselves, for they believe that they can make themselves into anything they please. They need a recommendation from someone, who must say who they are and what they are; but we, we need no introduction, no recommendation. You are recommended and introduced, inasmuch as you are a child of our holy Church. Hold fast to this, my child, and speak to me about whatever you wish to, of what is sacred and what is profane, of what is great and what is small; you will always find with me a home. If they disgust you in the world, and make you feel homeless, remember, here is rest and here is home. Look out of doors! Your father has, above there, a hot-house for foreign plants which, are not at home in our climate; this room is your hot-house for the plant of holy faith which, is not at home yonder. My child, I cast no stone at any one, but I tell you, and you know already, this plant is not of this world, and is, in this world, in a foreign climate; it has been brought to us from heaven."

The Priest stood looking out of the window, and Manna sat on the sofa.

For some time not a word was spoken. Manna was deeply affected by this elevated strain of cordial sympathy. There was no need of any hesitating preliminaries; she was at once conducted into the inmost sanctuary.

She asked at last in a timid way, how she ought to conduct herself towards all the persons who were received as friends in the house of her parents, and who plumed themselves upon their culture.

"You question well, you question definitely, and that is the mark of a mature mind," replied the Priest. "Know then, that you are to smile at all the boastful things you will be obliged to listen to; they pretend to be so great, and they are so very little. These learned ones believe that the world is without understanding, and that it is ruled with no more wisdom than their understanding and their wisdom attribute to it; they put God in one scale, and their own brain in the other. Pah!"

The Priest spoke now in a wholly different tone; he was violent and bitter, so that Manna shrank together with affright. The Priest, who noticed this, composed himself again, saying:--

"You see that I am still weak, and allow myself to be carried away by excitement. My child, there are two things which conquer the world: their names are God and the Devil, or, when transferred into the domain of our own interior being, Piety and Frivolity. Piety sees everything as holy; appearances are only a veil, while Frivolity sees nothing as holy. Piety is the law of God; Frivolity has released herself from the law of God, and sports with the world of appearances according to her own pleasure. Between piety and frivolity there is a half-and-half state, and that is the worst of all. Frivolity reaches its extreme point and is capable of being converted, to which we have some glorious witnesses; but the heroes of reason, so-called, or, more properly speaking, the weaklings of reason, they are not capable of being converted, for they are wholly destitute of that disposition which tends to humility."

The Priest thought that Manna would understand him to be pointing out Eric and Pranken; he did not want to be any more personal at first, but the ground was to be broken. Now he turned round, smiling, and seating himself said:--

"But, my child, let us not to-day lose ourselves in such general considerations. What have you to say?"

Manna complained of finding it so hard to complete another year of probation, moving about in the world in order to be released from it.

The Priest reassured her with the words:--

"You wish to take the veil; you have taken it already; it is drawn over you, and over the world, though invisible to every body else. Things in the world do not affect your real self at all; there is a veil between you and the world, which will be wholly dropped only when death gives us deliverance."

The Priest proceeded to exhort her to subject herself to what was the hardest of all experiences to youth and ardent zeal,--she was not to consider it as her vocation to change the opinions of others, but she was to labor for her own perfection.

He went more cautiously to work than Pranken did; he avoided a direct attack upon Eric, as this might awaken an interest in Manna towards him. He even praised him; but it was done in that tone of condescension and pity, which comes so natural to him who upholds a dogmatic faith. He inculcated upon her the fact, that she would soon understand how trifling an affair it would be to annihilate this liberal culture, as it was termed,--that it was in its very nature exceedingly fragile. This could be plainly seen from each one of these so-called liberally cultivated people wanting to be something entirely different from his neighbor. Each one of Roland's teachers, for instance, had a different method, a different course of instruction, different principles, and a different end in view.

When Manna asked why the Priest had not used his influence to keep Eric from being received into the family, he replied that he was glad to find her so zealous, but a person was obliged to let some things take their course in this world; and besides, from the outset, all resistance to her father would have been to no purpose, for Roland had insisted upon having his own way. And notwithstanding Eric was a complete heretic, he recognized the holy, to a certain extent, although there was much pride mingled with this recognition.

He feared to make Eric of too much importance, and so he added, almost with timidity, that these apparently mild and enthusiastic idealists were just the most dangerous.

Then he went on to advise Manna to consider the world around as alien to herself.

The interview seemed now to have become rather painful. The Priest suddenly and abruptly said that it was time for Manna to return home, as they would be expecting her there. She was not to conceal that she had been with him, but he would excuse her now in advance, if she should often suffer a considerable time to intervene between her calls upon him; he should remain unshaken in the conviction that her inmost soul continued devoted to the holy faith.

"Now go, my child," he said in conclusion, "and be assured that I shall pray for you."

Manna had risen; she looked at him earnestly. The inquiry seemed to be awakened in her own soul: Can, then, one human being pray for another?

The inquiry which Roland had proposed presented itself afresh, and grew to be the riddle of her life. She desired to sacrifice herself for another, her whole existence should be only a prayer for another.

How is this possible?

She wanted to ask if it were true, and if true, why it was, that one human being could do more harm than good to another; that one could lay a burden upon another soul, but no one could remove that burden. She wanted to say this to the Priest, and receive some help from him, but he repeated,--"Now go, my child!" She turned away her inquiring eyes and went.

On her way home, she stood near a field, watching a laborer who was busy ploughing, and the thought occurred to her: Yes, one can sacrifice himself for another, for the souls of men are nothing by themselves; all that breathe are nothing but a breath of God; all movement in the earth and in the great world is nothing but the movement of a single Being.

Everything seemed to swim before her eyes; she saw the peasant ploughing, she saw the vessels floating upon the Rhine, and the birds flying in the air. All is one, all is little, the whole is only a giant's toy.

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II. ONE'S OWN PART IN THE WORLD

Manna walked dreamily along, but became roused to full consciousness when the dogs Rose and Thistle sprang up to her, rejoiced to have their mistress with them again.

"So our wild doe has got home?" cried a voice from a distance; it was that of the field-guard, Claus, who had the dogs with him. "I mustn't speak to you now as I used to," he exclaimed. "Hi! how tall you are! But what are you so sad for? Cheer up! Just see, Fräulein, all round, as far down as the rocks there, your father has bought it all."

"Can one buy the earth?" asked Manna, as if waking from a dream.

Claus replied:--

"What do you say? I don't understand you."

"It was of no consequence," answered Manna. Can one buy then the immovable ground? From whom? Who has a right to it? This question presented itself to Manna as an enigma; she gazed intently into the empty air, and hardly heard the huntsman's narrative of his recent experiences. When he said:--"Yes, Fräulein, I've been a simpleton, and am very sorry for it," she asked him:--

"What have you been doing?"

"Zounds! I repeat that I've been doing nothing; that all my life I've been a simple, honest fellow, and not a bad one at all. The bigger rascal one is, so much the better off. What now does the world give me? People can make you bad, but good--who can make you that? The only comfort grows there on the hillside--there's where the drop of comfort comes from, but I can get only a beggar's sup. I should just like to know whether Herr Dournay is a true man; I think there's no true men going now except Herr Weidmann. You've been in the convent, and is't a fact that you want to be a nun?"

Manna had not time to answer, for Claus continued, laughing:--

"I've many a time thought that I'd like to go into a convent, too. Everybody ought to be able to go into a convent when he's sixty years old; nothing to do there but drink and drink, until death claps his warrant upon you. But I don't want to make death's acquaintance yet awhile; I say, like the constable of Mattenheim: Lord, take your own time, I'm in no hurry."

Although so early in the morning, the field-guard was a little excited and talked a little thick. Manna was afraid of him, but now gave him her hand and went off with the dogs.

"I'd like to ask one favor of you!" he called after her.

She stopped.

He came up, and stated to her that the gauger had given him a ticket in the Cathedral lottery, and he had sold it to Sevenpiper, and if the number drew the first prize, he should tear all the hair out of his head, and never have a minute's comfort with his children the rest of his life. If Manna would give him a dollar, he could buy the ticket back again.

As Manna hesitated, he added:--

"It's a pious matter, and just suits you."

Manna did not comprehend what he meant, and she learned now, for the first time, that a lottery had been set up to raise money for the completion of the Cathedral. She gave the dollar, and walked quickly away.

She went along the Rhine. The smooth surface was broken only by the circling ripples, and the fishes could be seen sporting beneath; the willows on the banks quivered in the morning breeze, and were mirrored in the stream. Manna entered the park. The fragrance of flowers was wafted on the fresh, sparkling air, and a divine peace was diffused everywhere around. The flowers glistened with a lustrous brightness, and each color was heightened and glorified by the other; the white added to the splendor of the blue, and the red was softened in its burning glow, making a holy, peaceful harmony.

Each flower, each tree in blossom, helps to make fragrant the air which the daughter of the house inhales; and around her is a human atmosphere whose elements are hard to analyze. The father, harsh, and violent, wanted to force his will upon his child either by kindness or severity; the mother, wrapped up in her own feelings, wholly taken up with herself and her ardent longings for worldly show.

The Professorin thought much of Manna, and would willingly have given her rest; would have helped her over the first days and imparted what she could, but she knew very well that it was not best to offer anything before it was asked for.

The Aunt's look and manner seemed always to be saying: I am all ready, if there is anything you want of me. There was no particular thing that she desired to proffer Manna, but she would have held back nothing.

Eric was very deeply interested; he smiled to himself as the comparison occurred to him: This child out of the convent must feel as you did, when you left the regiment and doffed your uniform; formerly kept under strict discipline, she must now be under self-discipline altogether, and must feel the want of commands, of comrades.

Manna took the single seat under the weeping ash, that had been put in order for her again, and now she wondered why she had been so rude yesterday to Eric.

She wanted to say the first time she saw him: Do not believe that I presumed in this way because you are dependent and in service.

And at this same moment Eric was walking alone in the park, and proposing to say when he should meet with Manna: I would not have our intercourse begin with ill-humor or a misunderstanding.

Manna, hearing approaching footsteps, now looked up and saw Eric coming along the path. She remained seated. As he came nearer, he greeted her, but neither of them uttered the contemplated speech.

Eric began:--

"I should like to give you a proof that I hold sacred the interior sanctuary of your thought--and if yesterday I--it was a day of great excitement. I beg you would also remember that my employment tends to make me interest myself even in the thoughts of those with whom I have no concern."

His tone was subdued. Manna was at a loss what to reply. Both were silent, and there was nothing heard but the singing of the birds. At last Manna said:--

"Tell me about Roland. What is his character?"

"My father used to say, dear Fräulein, that no one could describe to another the characteristics of his fellow; that each one sees the traits in an entirely different light."

"You are evading my question."

"No. I wanted to say to you that I do not consider it feasible to characterize any person justly. If I praise Roland, it seems to me as if I were praising a portion of myself; and if I point out his deficiencies, then perhaps I am too severe, because I feel as if they were my own. One thing, however, a human being may be allowed to say in his own commendation; and so I may be allowed to say of Roland, that he has industry, perseverance, and truthfulness; this is the solid rock on which the moral superstructure can be erected."

Manna involuntarily held up her prayer-book with both hands, as if it were a shield.

Eric, thinking he understood the meaning of this motion, said:--

"It has been, and is, a leading object with me, that Roland should gain an eye of his own, and trust to his own eye."

"An eye of his own?" Manna asked in wonderment.

"Yes, you will readily perceive what I mean by that. And now I have one favor to ask for myself."

"For yourself?"

"Yes Simply believe that I hold in high respect your ideal of life, because I regard it as sincere in you; and the favor I have to ask is, that you will do the same with me."

"I was not aware--" Manna answered, blushing deeply.

A sort of pain darted through her soul; on her face there was an expression of perplexity and conflict, for she was haunted by what Pranken had said. Is this demand of Eric's what Pranken had called setting up as a pattern of honesty, and did Eric, who might know of that view, exhort her to judge impartially, whilst he laid a special emphasis on having an eye of one's own? She could not complete her sentence, for Roland came up, saying,--

"Indeed! Have you found each other out so soon?"

Manna rose hastily, and went to the villa, holding Roland by the hand.

Pranken came out with Sonnenkamp to meet them, and immediately said that he had been to church too; but he considered it a duty not to distract Manna by speaking to her in the morning.

Manna expressed her thanks.

At breakfast, Pranken had many anecdotes to relate, and he did it well, of the royal hunting-lodge, and particularly of events at Court. And he succeeded in giving a new and humorous setting out to many worn-out garrison stories, that were fresh to this circle.

"Dear child," Sonnenkamp broke in, "you have not congratulated Herr von Pranken on his appointment as chamberlain."

Manna bowed in congratulation, and Pranken referred in a cheerful way to the contrast there would be between his summer life as a husbandman, and his winter as chamberlain. He said, further, that the happiest day of his life had been the one he had spent on the island ploughing; and a single rose was the only thing that he envied, upon which glances fell that he would have liked to turn towards himself.

Manna blushed.

Pranken went on to say that the Prince would drink the waters, this summer, at Carlsbad.

Sonnenkamp immediately added, that Doctor Richard some time ago had prescribed these waters to him as better suited to his case than those of Vichy.

All the links seemed supplied for a complete chain when Pranken narrated, in continuation, that his brother-in-law Clodwig, and his sister Bella, would visit Carlsbad this summer.

"And you must accompany us," Sonnenkamp said, nodding to Pranken.

Before she was fairly settled at home. Manna saw herself withdrawn from thence into the whirlpool of a watering-place life. Mention was made of Lina's non-acceptance of the invitation, and Pranken spoke very cleverly of the pleasant impression that her half-childlike, half-matronly appearance made upon him. He wanted to obviate any ill effects from Manna's hearing that he had for a while paid court to her friend. He then declared that he would take the snow-white pony to Wolfsgarten with him, in order to have it perfectly trained for Manna. Her remark, that she now took no pleasure on horseback, was set aside in an almost authoritative way by her father, who said the physician had directed only the day before, that Manna should keep as much as possible in the open air, and take a great deal of exercise.

Manna must now give a name to the snow-white little horse. Pranken wanted to have this done in due form, but Manna declined. When they rose from breakfast, she went to the stable, and gave to the snow-white pony three lumps of sugar.

"Now for the name--the name!" cried Sonnenkamp.

"She has given him his name," replied Pranken laughing; "she has given it to him bodily. Sugar is the pony's name, is it not?"

A smile passed over Manna's countenance for the first time, as she replied,--

"No, we will call him 'Snowdrop.'"

Pranken bade her good-bye with much feeling, and rode away in a smart trot down the road, making the sparks fly under his horse's hoofs. Manna saw the groom leading behind him the snow-white pony by the halter; she would not be perverse, but be moderate in all things. It seemed to her emblematic, to ride on horseback again, before she renounced all worldly trifles, and lived wholly in herself and for eternal realities.

Manna accompanied her father through the park and garden, and through the conservatories, and thanked him heartily for promising to send to the convent beautiful flowers, which could thrive well there in the enclosed courtyard. Sonnenkamp had it in his mind to confide to her the expected elevation to the rank of the nobility, but he wanted to wait for a suitable opportunity. The child must not be too suddenly introduced into the distracting whirl. He observed with satisfaction the large southern trees and plants, which were soon to be brought out into the open air. At first they only opened the doors in order to let in the outside air, and then the plants were brought out into sheltered situations out-of-doors. So would he do with his child.

Manna had soon made a fixed arrangement for the day's occupations, which she adhered to as an established rule; and this methodical strictness soon exerted an influence over the whole family. She found it difficult to deal with her mother, and chiefly in the matter of dress; for Frau Ceres, who changed her dress several times a day, wished Manna to do the same. But she was in the habit of putting on in the morning the dress which she was to wear all day, and was even reluctant to accept any service from her own dressing-maid. She kept on the morning dress, and it seemed to her as the only suitable thing, and alone worthy of the higher human life, that the nuns never varied their dress. By this means all distraction and waste of thought on outward appearance were saved.

She took no part in the beneficent activity of the Professorin. She had briefly given as a reason, that she had still too much to do for herself, and was not prepared to do for others.

She had, moreover, a decided antipathy to the assistant, Fräulein Milch.

She did not express this in words, but in her whole conduct; she avoided speaking with Fräulein Milch; and never gave her hand to her.

This was the effect of Fräulein Perini's teachings, who had withdrawn her from all connection with Fräulein Milch before Manna had entered the convent, as if the modest housekeeper had been a witch who could do her harm. She used to say to the child:

"The whole life and character of this person are an impropriety."

Manna took regular lessons of the Aunt in harp-playing, and Aunt Claudine was the only one who seemed to possess her confidence. She showed her copy-books to her, and particularly the astronomical ones with the alternate blue leaves and the golden pictures of the stars.

During the clear evenings, she spent several hours with the Aunt upon the flat roof of the villa, looking at the stars through a telescope. It was evident that Manna had been thoroughly taught; for the convent-school made a special point of surpassing the worldly schools in scientific instruction. Of course, all science was confined within the bounds which faith prescribes.

With all the dignified loftiness of her demeanor, there was something charmingly attractive in Aunt Claudine; she seemed to have lost or renounced something in life, and so there was a gentleness which more completely won Manna's affection.

In the Professorin, with all her friendliness, there was something commanding; she was self-contained, and gave without ever receiving.

Aunt Claudine, on the other hand, in spite of the difference of years, could be a young person's friend, and Manna felt the tranquillizing effect of this friendship.

Manna's maturity of thought often excited more surprise than even her actual knowledge. Her emotional nature had been widely developed; her religious earnestness and her settled religious convictions gave her serene composure and elevation, which might be mistaken for pride. She always felt as if she were placed on an invisible height, far above those who had no living faith. But this was not a boastful feeling of superiority; it was a sense of being supported, every moment, by all the great influences and views through whose aid so many holy men and women had won the battle of life.

Manna took especial delight in the lessons upon the harp; she said to the Aunt, that it seemed to her as if she had never heard herself before.

The Aunt explained that this was the first step of progress; that improvement really begins when one hears and sees himself.

Manna's eyes beamed softly, and she asked Aunt Claudine if this standing up alone by one's self in the world had not often been very hard for her.

"Certainly, my child. When one in youth makes a decision that affects the whole life, he does not know the real meaning of it."

Manna grasped convulsively the cross upon her bosom, and the Aunt continued:--

"Yes, my child, it requires courage and energy to be an old maid; at the time this resolution is taken, one is not fully conscious of how much it will require. Now, when I am alone, I am contented and peaceful; but in society and the world, I seem to myself often so superfluous, and as if only tolerated out of pity. Yes, my child, and one must take care not to be compassionate and sentimental towards one's self, or bitter; for the pitying of one's self often leads to bitterness and resentfulness."

"I can comprehend that," returned Manna. "Did you never have a longing to be able to enter a convent?"

"My child, I would not like to mislead and disturb you."

"No, say what you please, I can hear it all."

"Well, then, there are some institutions productive of so much harm, that they have forfeited the right of being perpetuated, at least, as we regard it. And, dear child, I could not, myself, live without art, without secular music, without the sight of what the plastic arts have produced and are still producing; herein I agree fully with my brother."

Manna looked in amazement at the Aunt; and she had the impression that a new view of life was unfolded to her, that was like the religious, and yet wholly peculiar in itself.

Towards Eric's mother. Manna was respectful but reserved. She treated her brother's teacher as a member of the family, but as a piece of property, an object, of utility, to which one could have recourse whenever there was need. There were hours and days when she had no more to do with him than if he had been a chair or a table. She often put a question to him directly and naturally, if she wanted any particular thing elucidated; and as soon as Eric began to expatiate beyond the special topic under consideration, she would say with great decision:--

"I did not want to know about that. I thank you for the information you have given."

She never received any instruction for which she did not immediately thank him, just as she would a servant for anything handed to her.

The whole family had the feeling that here was a strength adequate to attain its own end.

Manna did not visit in the neighborhood; she insisted upon it that she had come only to be with her parents and her brother, and no one else.

Sonnenkamp was alarmed at this determined and uncompliant bearing.

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III. EVERYTHING FLIES THAT HAS WINGS

Manna soon expressed a determined purpose to get a better insight into the method and direction of her brother's education. She wanted to be present at Eric's lessons.

Sonnenkamp endeavored to induce the Aunt to inform Eric of this request, but she declined. Manna had better ask him herself.

Sonnenkamp was deeply vexed at this refusal, but Manna's resolution was taken at once. She expressed her wish at the table, assigning no reason, for she thought that the real one might wound, and any other than the real one she could not consent to offer as a pretext.

After they had risen from the table, Eric gave her the arrangement of the hours of study, and declared himself ready to conform to her wishes, merely adding that he should continue his instruction without any reference to her presence.

Manna now sat at the window with her embroidery, whilst Eric and Roland pursued their occupations at the table. By noon Manna had laid aside her work, and was listening with closed eyes. The next day she brought no work with her, and thus she sat there day after day with the two, listening with interest even to the mathematics. The musical voice of Eric seemed to have a magical charm for the proud and cold maiden, and at many an utterance she opened wide her eyes, as if she must satisfy herself who this really was that was speaking.

One day, however, she came only to say that she should come no more.

"I could still learn a great deal from you," she said, "but it is better that I should keep by myself. I thank you," she said again; but as if recollecting that she was continually doing this, she quickly added,--

"I thank you differently from what I have before. I acknowledge the delicacy with which you have spared me the perplexity of answering the question I see you wanted to put to me, whether I was satisfied with your instruction. It is very kind not to have asked this question."

"You are good at reading countenances," answered Eric. And so they parted.

From this time Manna's haughty and even her confident bearing toward Eric was gone; there was a sort of shyness, and she seldom spoke to him. But this want of notice was something very far removed from that haughty indifference with which she had formerly disregarded him; there was defiance, angry resistance in her demeanor, as if she would say, I do not comprehend why you are of any interest to me whatever.

Manna also occasionally visited the castle, going by herself with her two dogs. She had the Architect explain to her the plans of this building as it was being restored, and as it existed formerly.

She took an interest in the work, and entered into consultation with her father in regard to the fitting up of the hall already finished, the so-called Knight's hall.

Sonnenkamp was busily employed in buying the ancient weapons to be hung upon the walls, and the armor to be placed upon the pillars. He could not refrain from saying to Manna beforehand, that he intended to dedicate the castle in the autumn, on her birthday; but she desired that this should be omitted. This continual festivity and banqueting did not suit her; and she was particularly anxious that her birthday should be marked by no external celebration, even of the simplest kind.

Since her return from the convent, if she would honestly confess it to herself,--and Manna ventured to confess all,--she had taken greater pleasure in her dogs than in anything else. She had even written a letter to the Superior, asking whether they would allow her to bring a dog with her into the convent, but had burned the letter afterwards. She represented to herself how laughable it would be for a nun to be going through the garden with a dog at her heels, and how intolerable if every nun had a dog of her own. She smiled to herself for the first time, and then again asked herself the question, Why do we have no animals in the convent? Eric found her as she was sitting down and talking to her dogs.

"Do you not think," she asked, "that a dog, this one, for instance, has an unspeakably sad expression of face?"

"Whoever looks for it can find it. The mystics say that it came from the fall of man; that since then, all creatures have a mournful expression."

Manna thanked him, but this time with a look only, and not with words. "Surprising how the man can enter into every thing! And why is he still a heretic! Why?"

A carriage was advancing toward them, and a white handkerchief was already waving in the distance. "Manna!" was called out; Eric withdrew. Manna rose and went to meet Lina, who got out and let the carriage drive on.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lina, "you are already on such good terms with one another! you need hide nothing from me. Ah, how fine! This is right splendid! I've something to tell you about my love; now kiss me. Ah, I see you haven't kissed each other yet, you don't how to kiss. Just think. Manna, how simple I've been; I made myself believe, at one time, that the Baron von Pranken was fond of me--no, that's not exactly what I meant, but I made myself believe that I liked him, and now I will tell you at once, that I love and I am loved."

"We all love God, and we are loved by him."

"Ah, yes, by God too. But Albert--Do you know Albert? you must know him, for he's building a castle for you. At that time at the musical festival--I saw you at once, and beckoned to you, but you didn't observe me--that was the very first time we ever came to an explanation. Ah, you can't begin to think how happy I am. At the beginning I couldn't take part in the singing: I was afraid all the time I should scream too loud; but after that I sang with the rest. Ah, it was so beautiful--so beautiful! we did nothing else but float away in music; and he sings splendidly too, though not so grandly as Herr Dournay. Now do tell me, Manna, how you felt when you heard him sing so? Did you know that he was the man you asked me about when you had the angel-wings on your shoulders."

Lina did not wait for an answer, but went on:--

"You must have seen me on the shore, when I met you, and I was leaning on my Albert's arm for the first time. I didn't want to speak to you there among the nuns and scholars; I shouldn't have been able to tell you all there. You don't take it amiss that I didn't appear to see you? Ah, I saw everybody, the whole world at once! Ah, and all was so splendid! And at the table there 'twas so merry! And once he asked me why I seemed all at once so sad. Then I confessed to him that I was thinking of you, how you were going back again to the convent, where 'twas so silent and so dull. I think the corridors have all got a cold. Ah, why can't you be as merry as we? Do be merry! There's nothing better in the world, and you've got all, and can have all in the world. Oh, do be merry! Ah, there flies a swallow, the first swallow. Oh, if I could only fly in that way up to him at the castle, and bid him good-morning, and keep flying to him and flying away again. Ah, Manna! Manna!"

It was very odd to her to see and hear this joyous, fluttering youthful companion; she could say nothing in response, and Lina did not seem to expect her to say anything, for she continued:

"So I was thinking as I was coming here, that if I were you, I'd issue an order or something of that sort to the whole country round, that in three days they should bring me all the birds they could catch, and I'd pay them an awful amount of money for doing it, and then I'd let all the birds fly away again up into the air. Don't you feel as if you were a bird that had been caught, and had got free again? Ah, and it's smart in you to come in the spring; there's too much dancing to be done, if you come home in the winter. Fourteen balls I went to, the first winter, and ever so many small parties. And if one then has her sweetheart--Ah, Manna, you can't think how beautiful that is! or perhaps you do know now. I beg you do tell me every thing. I am not yet betrothed to Albert, but we are as good as betrothed. You won't be a nun, will you? Believe what I say, they don't want you for a nun at all, they are only after your money. Would you like to be a baroness? I shouldn't. To be 'my lady'd' all the time when there's no need of it, and then to be laughed at behind one's back; no, I shouldn't like it at all. If a born lady does anything foolish, there's nothing to be said; but if one of us commits a folly, hi! the whole city and the whole land has to bear the blame of it. Ah, such a rich girl has a good deal to suffer for it! Here come the men and want to marry her money, and here come the nuns and want her to become a nun for her money. You may be sure, if you were one of those women yonder carrying coals out of the boat, the nuns wouldn't have you; you might be as clever, and as lovable, and as good as you are now. Yes, if you hadn't any money, and if you hadn't so much money, the nuns wouldn't want to have anything to do with you. Don't they try to make you believe that you've been called to be a saint? Don't believe it. Ah, in the convent! When I hear people telling how beautiful it was there on the convent-island, I've always thought: Yes indeed, right pretty, if one only goes there on a pleasure excursion; but to be a nun there!--Ah, Manna, if I could only make you as happy as I am! Do be jolly too! Ah, good heavens, why can't one give to another some of his enjoyment; I've so much--so much, and I should like most dearly to give some of it to you. But what do we talk so much for? Come, catch me! Do you remember our old play: 'Everything flies that has wings'? Come, catch me!"

Lina ran off with fluttering garments, and when she stopped saw that Manna had not followed her. She waited until she came up, and the two maidens walked in silence to the villa.

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Chapter IV

"THROUGH THE NEW DOOR."

Lina staid with Manna, so that she was unable to shake off her school-friend. When they went together to church, if Manna said, going and returning, that she would rather not talk in the morning, then Lina insisted that Manna need not say anything, she would do all the talking herself. She chatted about everything that came into her mind, things past and things to come.

As soon as she woke up she ran through the gamut, then ran trilling through the house, and almost every hour of the day, when there was no caller and they were within doors, she sat at the piano in the music saloon, singing and playing incessantly, mixing up serious and melancholy, classic and modern music, no matter what, so that it made sound enough. She would follow up one of Pergolese's mournful dirges with a merry Tyrolese carol.

The whole house was entirely changed by Lina's presence, and at the table there was a great deal of laughter. In cherry time the hot-houses at Villa Eden already supplied early apples; and Lina had the habit of never peeling an apple, but biting into it whole, congratulating herself that she could do it without being reprimanded by her mother. She paid no regard to Sonnenkamp's reproving look; she was an independent girl, doing recklessly whatever she fancied, and so accustomed to being scolded, that she had become hardened to it.

Lina ate heartily, like a good healthy peasant girl, while Manna ate as if it were a matter of compulsion. Lina took pleasure in eating, and was hungry all the time. She could always take something, she said of herself, and if anything at the table had a particularly good relish, she would say:--

"Aren't you glad, Manna, that you've got rid of that convent food. Ah, my first meal at home was a new experience to me, and here you have very nice things."

She also liked a glass of wine, and was rallied on that account. She begged Eric to defend her, and he replied:--

"That's easily done. It's a romantic absurdity to look upon it as a fine thing for a girl not to take pleasure in eating and drinking; and drinking wine is assuredly not an unfeminine act. Isn't drinking wine a much pleasanter thing to see than eating meat, nourishing one's self with animal food?"

Everybody laughed except Manna, who looked at Eric with an unmoved face. Strange how this man gives a surprising turn to every thought, and induces surprising turns of thought in other people!

Manna felt as if she were driven out of the house by Lina's presence.

Only at Frau Dournay's, for whom Lina entertained a holy awe, could Manna get any time for being alone; she felt herself in concealment when she fled to the green cottage, and by this means she came nearer to the Professorin, almost in spite of herself. Her uniform serenity of soul, her never-failing willingness to devote herself to others, were perceived by Manna, and she was startled at hearing her say,--

"You wanted to make a request of me, dear child. Why do you hold back?"

"I, a request? What request?"

"You would like that Lina should come here, but you avoid acknowledging this to me and to her. If you will honestly confess to me that you would like this, I will arrange the matter."

Manna confessed that she had not had the courage to express her wish.

By the next day Lina was settled at the cottage with the Professorin, and there she was merry as a cricket, and enlivened the whole house with her cheerfulness, and her fresh bubbling gaiety alone. Wherever she was, walking, standing, or sitting, she sang to herself like a bird on the branch, and the breasts of the hearers were refreshed. The Aunt played an accompaniment for her songs, and the clear, bell-like tone of her voice was full of fresh health and bright joy. She sang without the least effort, and her love added a tone of deep feeling to her singing, which one would not have supposed she possessed.

She was perfectly undisciplined, but she was very particular about her dress, especially since she had been in love, and she liked to look at herself in the glass. But to bother herself about the inner life,--"That's not my style," was her uniform manner of speaking. She lived her own life, was a Catholic, because she was born so, and it was too much trouble to make any change. She laughed, sang and danced; yesterday is gone, and to-morrow will look out for itself. Amongst all these persons who bore a heavy burden in their souls, who were imposing some heavy task upon themselves, Lina was the only light-hearted child of nature; and she was regarded by those who looked upon her rather with envious than contemptuous eyes.

"Ah! could one but be like her!" sighed each one in his own way.

Lina, gradually, became less demonstrative and excitable through the quiet influence of the Professorin. It gave her pleasure to be able to understand a great deal of what the Professorin said; but there were many things beyond her comprehension. What does it matter? One must not take all there is in the dish,--one must leave something for others.

It was beautiful to see Manna coming in her bright summer dress through the park to the cottage. But she manifested to the Professorin only a respectful confidence; she always addressed her as Madame, and spoke to her in French, the language she had been accustomed to use at the convent. To all questions she gave direct answers.

"Had you any particular friend at the convent?" the Professorin once asked.

"No, it is not allowed. One must not show any special affection, but treat all with an equal love."

"If it would not weary you, I should like to ask another question."

"Oh, you do not weary me in the least. I like to talk of the convent better than any thing else; I think of it all the time. Ask what you please."

"Had you a particularly confidential relation with any one of the ladies?"

Manna mentioned the name of the Superior, and was greatly surprised to hear the Professorin extol the beauty of such a life as hers; that there could be nothing more blissful than to confer peace and joy upon young children, to aid them to become strong, to overcome the trials of existence. It was a life that death could not change, and in which the sorrow of parting and absence could never be known.

The Professorin repeated that she should regard it as a crime, to say a single word that should shake a soul desiring to devote itself to such a life.

"Dear child, thou hast chosen the right path according to thy light."

Manna bowed, and she seemed transfigured. It did not occur to her that the Professorin had spoken to her all at once so affectionately. But now she shrank into herself with alarm. Is this not one of the temptations? Does not this woman praise her, enter into her utmost soul, in order to win her over and seduce her from the faith? A glance of suspicion shot from those youthful eyes upon the elderly lady. And yet Manna returned, again and again, to the Professorin, as is if she were fleeing from something, and could find concealment only there.

Frau Dournay's uniform serenity of soul, her perpetual willingness to devote herself to the service of others, had a magnetic attraction for her, and before she was aware of it, she formed more intimate relations, and became more confidential with the Professorin than she had ever believed possible.

The struggle and the vacillation of the girl's young heart were revealed first of all to the Professorin. As they were sitting once in the garden, having fortunately declined to go with Lina, Roland, and Eric, on an excursion upon the Rhine, Manna said, looking timidly around,--

"Why should it be a sin to take delight in nature? Is not joy itself a sort of devotion?"

The Professorin making no reply. Manna said with pressing earnestness:--

"Do speak, I entreat you."

"A writer," replied she, "whom you do not probably revere as we do, has said: God loves better to see a heart filled with joy than with sorrow."

"What's the man's name?"

"Gotthold Lessing."

Manna requested to have the passage pointed out. The Professorin brought the book, and from that time there was a free interchange of thought between them. The Professorin continued very cautious in her remarks, and repeated that she should look upon it as a sacrilege to deprive a believing heart of its religious convictions.

Manna declared that she was strong enough to enter into the thoughts of the children of the world, as they are termed, without getting lost herself.

The Professorin repeatedly warned and advised her, but she insisted that she had returned to the world in order to perceive what it had to proffer to her, and then to renounce all freely. She expressed a firm determination not to become Pranken's wife, in fact, not to be married at all. She came very near disclosing to the Professorin, that she wanted to devote herself as an expiatory sacrifice, not from compulsion, but, through heavenly grace, freely renouncing all the delights of the world.

"To you," said Manna, with tearful eyes, "I could tell all."

It would have required only a single word, one encouraging appeal, and Manna would have told everything to the Mother. But she earnestly entreated not to be made the repository of any secret; not because she could not keep it faithfully, but it would be a burden to her, and she should never feel at peace if she should divert a being formed to live in the purest sphere from occupying her true place. She spoke very guardedly, choosing her words carefully, for Manna must not have the least suspicion that she also was hiding a secret; she simply let it be understood that she favored the maiden's resolution to take the veil.

Something of Sonnenkamp's nature seemed awakened in Manna's soul. Was this woman encouraging her only in order to gain a firmer hold upon her? But then, as she looked up into the quiet, calm face of the Mother, she felt impelled to fall upon her neck and beg her forgiveness for having had such unjust thoughts of her. The Professorin saw the conflict in the child, but gave it a different interpretation; she had no suspicion that distrust of the worst kind was felt by Manna.

As Manna passed through the new door on her way home through the meadows, she suddenly stood still. Here she had stood on the first morning, here had the thought darted through her soul that she must often pass through this gateway, over this path, engaged in deep struggles, and contending for victory. This foreboding had now been realized.

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V. BE LED INTO TEMPTATION

Manna went regularly to church, and prayed with constant and unchanging fervor, but a peculiar shyness held her back from the parsonage. She said constantly to herself that the Priest himself had told her that it would be well to avoid seeing him for a time, till she had become familiar with her new life.

Often, in the midst of conversation with the Professorin, a fear came over her that she was binding herself too closely to the life of another, and she felt that she must regain her power of looking beyond all the varying phenomena of the world. She at last came to the determination to go to the Priest, to whom she began to explain and excuse her long absence; but he interrupted her mildly, saying that she need tell him nothing, he had read her soul, and believed that he understood her feelings; she must appear to herself, like a person who, returning to earth after his departure from it, watches the actions of men, their restless days and nights of painful dreams, their attempts to satisfy or to benumb the conscience.

He impressed it upon her that she ought to judge people gently; the worst sinners indeed were those who believed they knew what they were doing, and it was most difficult to pardon them; but if we take the highest views, these were the ones who most needed forgiveness, because, in spite of what they say, they really do not know what they do, and we can always say of them. Lord, forgive them. There is nothing left for us, but silently to pray for their salvation, imploring the merciful Father to grant them redemption.

Without mentioning any name, he then went on to represent to her that there are some people, who, with outward piety and self-complacency, perform so-called good works, and borrow holy words for the expression of thoughts far removed from what is really divine.

He thus described the Professorin without naming her.

Then he delineated others, who, full of knowledge, swerve constantly from the central truth, and who, without having any fixed goal of their own, imagine that they are able to lead others.

Thus he delineated Eric.

With the greatest caution he painted the men of the world, who wish to force the Lord of heaven and earth to show them favor, and who with their scoffs banish all humility. He openly named as examples Doctor Richard and the Weidmann circle, but at the same time he had Sonnenkamp in view, but the daughter must make this application for herself.

Manna listened eagerly. As she looked out of the window, her eyes rested on her father's house, with the park and garden, and it seemed to her as if they must all be overwhelmed, the waters surge up from the Rhine, the everlasting floods submerge the earth, and only here in this room is the ark of safety.

Timidly, hardly breathing the words aloud, she mournfully asked why the task of returning into life was laid upon her.

The Priest gently consoled her, telling her that, as an eye which must soon close, to open again in eternity, watched from this window over all which passed below in the valley, so an unchanging eye was watching over her; she must enter the tumult without fear, having within her thoughts which looked down upon it all from a lofty height of their own. This was the real trial specially laid upon her.

He went farther, and charged Manna not to come to him again for a long time; she was to remain away for weeks and months, that she might gain strength within herself; she was to be fettered by no external bond, not even that of making stated visits to him, but all was to depend on her own free, steadfast, independent will; leaning upon herself, with no outward support, she was to conquer all temptations.

Manna asked hesitatingly, why the Priest had not taken upon himself the wide-extending benevolent work, which the Professorin was now commissioned by her father to carry on.

"Why?" exclaimed the Priest, with a flash in his usually quiet eye. "We cannot take what is not given to us; they must learn that this so-called benevolence, without the blessing of the Church, becomes absolutely null, and I command you to have nothing to do with it, for you cannot enter into such a fellowship."

Manna was much startled when the Priest told her that he did not consider her fitted to take the veil, that it would be better for her to be Pranken's wife.

The color mounted to Manna's face, and she moved her hands as if warding off a blow; she opened her mouth, but could not utter a word.

"It is well," said the Priest, soothingly, "it is well if you can conquer this too, but we do not call you, we do not beguile you; you must come at your own call, and follow your own leading. People will whisper to you. The parsons, for so they call us, have misled you with most cunning wiles. You must remember, the sun shining down upon us bears witness that I have urged you not to renounce the world entirely. If you cannot do otherwise, if you feel an imperative call, then you will be welcome to us; not otherwise, not even with all your wealth."

The Priest had arisen, and was walking up and down the room with hasty strides, A long pause ensued; he stood at the window, looking out, while Manna sat trembling on the sofa. The Priest turned towards her, saying,--

"You see what esteem we feel for you, when we leave all to your own strength, the strength of faith and of renunciation within you; hold firmly to that, and let us speak freely and calmly to each other. Do you not think this Herr Dournay a most attractive man? Speak to me as openly and sincerely as you would to yourself."

"I don't yet know what to think. I am inclined to believe that there is something in him which might make him a noble instrument of the Holy Spirit."

"Ah! is that your feeling? Thank you for being so honest and unreserved. That is the wonderful art of the tempter, that he can assume the purest form; with a pretence of duty and the hope of conversion he can so tempt the poor child of humanity, that it does not notice that it has already fallen into evil. This then is the shape he takes for you? I advise you, yes, I require it of you, I command you, to attempt to change this false coin into true metal. Try it, it is your duty; and if you succeed, you are greater than I thought, and if you fail, you are cured for ever. The ways of Providence are wise, which have brought this man to you, and planted the thought of his conversion in your heart; you are bound, for the sake of his salvation and your own, to make the attempt and to persevere in it. Look out of doors! it is springtime, everything seems thriving and blooming in security; but the day will come when the tempest will burst forth, rending the branches and tearing up the roots, and so it must be. What is planted in you must be tried by the storm of temptation, with all its fine and cunning wiles; it must be tossed hither and, thither till it is all but uprooted--not till then will you be strong."

Again the Priest strode up and down with heavy steps. Manna knew not what to say, nor how she was to leave this room, and go back again into the sight of men who were to be to her as shadows, as forms assumed by the tempter.

The Priest turned towards her, and said gently,--

"Now go, go, my daughter. And God be with thee."

He gave her his blessing, and Manna went. With a conflict in her heart, straining her powers to look at life as a spectacle, as a temptation which she must not avoid, she devoted herself to those around her, and no one suspected why she was so cheerful and ready to be induced to take part in every kind of merriment.

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VI. ANOTHER SPIRE BUILT

The Mother was the only one who suspected that any change was going on in Eric; he became peculiarly reserved, even shy. Instead of his former communicativeness, he was now very careful of what he said, especially in Manna's presence, as if he felt himself near one whose serenity must not be troubled.

But this change in Eric's demeanor soon attracted the notice of another observer who kept a keener watch. Bella came to call upon her future sister-in-law. She was very confidential towards Manna; she had the habit of putting her arm round the waist of girls whom she liked, and towards whom she desired to be gracious, and promenading with them in this affectionate way; but whenever she attempted this with Manna, the latter always made a movement as if she would shake her off, and finally told her, in so many words, that she disliked it. Bella smiled, but she was inwardly vexed. In this house, in this garden, she must encounter such rebuffs as she had never believed possible. But outwardly there was no trace that her feelings were hurt, although it required her utmost exertion to remain composed.

With an easy turn of the conversation, she asked Eric if he now had another pupil.

Eric answered her in the same light tone, that Manna had already completed her education.

Bella nodded pleasantly.

The formal visit to Manna was now over; and when she excused herself for not returning it, saying that it was her purpose to visit nowhere, Bella made a friendly call upon the Mother and the Aunt. She went back to Wolfsgarten with the resolution to give, hereafter, the go-by to this house and all its inmates. Otto wanted to marry a wife from it, and that was his affair; but she believed that she ought to call his attention to the fact, that in the mutual reserve of Manna and Eric there was the germ of a deeper feeling. Pranken replied with a spice of maliciousness, that the family tutor was not half so dangerous as he appeared to his sister, especially not to one whose character was grounded in religious conviction.

Pranken made frequent visits to Villa Eden, and always enlivened its inmates. But it did not escape Manna's penetrating observation, that he was an artisan, but not an artist; he displayed much clever ingenuity, but had no productive genius, and was unstable and impulsive. This was especially noticeable when Eric was present.

Pranken was never at a loss in uttering some pointed remark, but he could not carry on a discussion; novel propositions bewildered him, and he had no pertinent observations to bring forward, whilst Eric became more inspirited and more original by the presentation of opposing thoughts and new statements.

Eric was always the same from morning to night, while Pranken was a different being in the evening from what he was in the morning. In the morning he was obliged to rouse himself; he was tired, heavy, low-spirited; at evening he was lively, dashing, and full of energy. He often seemed languid and spiritless; and being aware of this, he was stimulated to exertion. There was always an element of disquiet in intercourse with him, and under an appearance of friendliness there was almost always a latent bitter hostility. He thought now, too, that he could discover an understanding between Eric and Manna.

Both Manna and Eric thought more of the universal, of the purely ideal, than they did of the personal; in her, this proceeded from the religious, and in him, from the philosophical element. In the beginning, Manna had held herself aloof from him with a sort of defiance, even with a positive antagonism; but gradually she came to perceive the inviolable truthfulness of his whole being. When Pranken was engaged in argument, he asserted what he had to say as if it were incontrovertible; while Eric, on the other hand, often replied:--

"I should like to be allowed first to state the question; for the best thing we can do in order to arrive at some actual result, is, to state the question sharply and definitely." "And," he added, laughing, "the old philosopher, Epictetus, has designated 'asking the right questions and exercising forbearance' as the very essence of philosophy."

"Who is Epictetus?" Manna would ask; and while Eric briefly gave an account of the life of this stoic, a slave, who had become a philosopher and taught after the manner of Socrates, adding some reflections of his own. Manna was alarmed to see how fully she agreed with him; her gods were different, but their devotional spirit was the same.

Pranken was jealous when he saw Manna deeply interested in Eric's expositions, and often tried to make him expose his heretical sentiments, so that he might become abhorrent to Manna.

There was frequently a sort of tournament in which they took part, and Manna sat, as it were, upon a dais to crown the victor. In such a state of feeling, if easily happens that insignificant circumstances become the starting point of a life and death contest. And this was the case one day, when Pranken related in a merry way that to-day was a bonâ fide pilgrimage of the whole country to the railroad station, for they were expecting, by the evening train, the list of those who had drawn prizes in the Cathedral lottery; and all the poor people, the servants, male and female, the vine-dressers, the quarrymen, and the boatmen, were each one of them hoping to get the first prize. Manna had it on her lips to say that she had given money to Claus in order to redeem his ticket, but, before she could do it, Eric, unable to restrain himself, cried out:--

"This lottery is an atrocity, a disgrace to our age."

"What's that? What do you say?"

"I beg your pardon, I was hasty," said Eric, trying to divert the subject.

But Manna asked:--

"May we not know what your objection is?"

"I would rather not state it."

Manna's face flushed. This man, she thought, is also a heretic in regard to social institutions! But she quickly composed herself, and continued quietly:--

"It ought not to be a matter of indifference to you to be regarded as open to the charge of being unjust."

"Herr Captain," Pranken said, coming to her help, "would you favor us so far as to give us your view? It would be very kind of you if you would instruct us, and give us at length your objections." Then turning to Manna, he said in a low tone:--

"Take notice, this will be the order of his discourse. First, he declines to speak, like a singer who is urged to sing in company; then he asks pardon for his novel views; next comes a condescending definition; after that a citation from Professor Hamlet, to be succeeded by a moral burst of indignation, and every one who thinks otherwise is an idiot or a knave; and finally, when you think now is the grand finale, he adds something else, and winds up with a trill."

Eric perceived that he was to be irritated and goaded on, but he had self-control enough to say to himself: I will not be driven over the barriers. With quiet deliberation he proceeded to say:--

"First of all, I beg you would remember that Catholic as well as Protestant cathedrals are to be completed by this horrible and no longer unusual means."

"And why so horrible?" asked Manna.

"Yes, go on, go on!" urged Pranken, as if he were flourishing his horse-whip.

"Allow me to take more time," answered Eric; "I must take a longer spring."

"Proceed! proceed!" said Pranken sharply, twirling the ends of his moustache.

"The largest cathedrals," Eric began by saying, "are unfinished; quiet in the lap of earth rest thousands and tens of thousand hands which devotion once moved to dig the stone, to raise, and lay, and chisel them. Careless and thoughtless enough, undoubtedly, were the workmen, but they were set in motion by devout feeling, the feeling of those who poured out the money, and those who superintended the work, desiring to build a house of God. But listen to the cry now: You servant-man, you servant-girl, you journeyman, come here! here's a lottery ticket--only one dollar to pay--you can make so much by it, and help build a church besides! How can the holy Word be devoutly proclaimed in a building erected by an appeal to the covetousness of men? You smile. You think, perhaps, that it does no harm to the servant-man and servant-girl to lose the dollar; but I ask if it's no harm to their souls to be hoping for prizes in the lottery? And suppose a schedule of the lottery were laid in the corner-stone of the new building. Future generations would have harder work to decipher these figures, than we with the remains of the lake-dwellers. What sort of a race was this, they would say, which built a church with the profits of a lottery? Tetzel's hawking of indulgences was far less objectionable, for then they paid money for the pardon of their sins; the motive was a moral one, however much they may have been in error. But here----"

"I had thought," Sonnenkamp interrupted, "that you considered beauty, the completion of the beautiful structure, as a sufficiently moral motive, just as any pagan would."

"I thank you for this suggestion, for it brings me to the point, to state it briefly, that it is a contradiction to make use of unholy means for a holy end, and nothing incongruous is truly beautiful."

Sonnenkamp was exceedingly charmed with this exposition, but Pranken, who saw that his prophecy in regard to the way in which Eric would proceed was altogether falsified, held his moustache thoughtfully between his fingers, and contracted his brows. He was stirred up, and doubly so, when he saw that Manna looked very attentive and serious. He would have been beside himself if he could have imagined what were her thoughts.

This heretic, Eric, would not have been able to reach a single dogma of her belief, with all his philosophy, for this was no lever with which to move the solid rock; but in this assault upon an apparently incidental matter, her confidence was shaken in the perfect moral beauty of the measures of those who were the representatives of the Spirit in the world. Everything which concerned religion was in her view fixed and unalterable, and just this thing troubled Manna, this insignificant trifle, that their object was money. She despised money, she regarded it as a dangerous enemy, and "money--money!" echoed and re-echoed within her. "Is gold the temptation?"

Pranken hastily summoned up his energies to say:--

"It strikes me as inconsiderate or immodest--excuse me if I do not use just the right word--I mean, he who is an unbeliever should not attack another's belief."

"Should we not?" replied Eric. "And still we are attacked. Humility is a virtue. Very true; and it is the virtue of a state of siege. We still stammer at the word of salvation. But is the child who cannot yet speak, on that account not to make known his wishes by cries? Lofty and noble to us is the religion of love, but love cannot be commanded, love is the genius of the heart; on the other hand, kindness, regard, active help can be commanded and guided; love, never. The great command, Love thy neighbor as thyself, has become hypocrisy; it is said, I love my neighbor, but I have nothing to do for him. Our doctrine says, Help thy neighbor as thyself. Love is a sort of musical susceptibility which can be counterfeited, but help cannot be. Therefore we apply more broadly the command, and say, Help thy neighbor as thyself. And you must do it yourself; for we stand upon the fundamental principle that there is no substitution in the realm of moral activity, and here it is the primal law that every one shall do guard-duty for himself."

"You've said that once before," Pranken interposed.

"True, and I shall often repeat it. I think that we have as good a right as our opponents, who are not always uttering some new truth. The sunlight of to-day is like that of yesterday----"

Here Roland burst in breathless, crying: "Eric, you must come at once, the field-guard is here; he is like a crazy man, and he says that you only can decide, and you alone shall decide."

"What has happened?"

"Sevenpiper has drawn the grand prize, and Claus says that the money belongs to him. Come, he's like one raving mad."

Eric went down to the courtyard.

There sat Claus upon a dog-kennel, and looked dolefully up at Eric and Roland. He spoke so thick and confusedly, that they could not make out distinctly what he meant; this only was plain, that Sevenpiper had drawn the prize, and Claus asserted that it belonged to him.

Sonnenkamp, Pranken, and Manna also made their appearance on the steps, and now Claus screamed out that Manna must bear testimony to having given him the money for the ticket, and he had simply forgotten to redeem it.

Eric quieted Claus, and promised to go with him to Sevenpiper. He asked permission of Sonnenkamp to have the horses harnessed. Roland was urgent to accompany him. Claus took a seat with the coachman on the box, and so they drove to the village to Sevenpiper's house.

They met the cooper in front of the house, and he told Eric that Sevenpiper had just turned him out of it. He said that he was in love with Sevenpiper's oldest daughter, and that this attachment had met the approval of the parents on both sides; but now Sevenpiper had shown him the door, saying that he could obtain a better match for his daughter, and that most assuredly he would not marry her to the son of Claus, who wanted to claim his property before the world.

"Is't true, father, that the prize belonged to you?"

"Yes, indeed; and it belongs to me still."

"So! Now I understand all about it," said the cooper, taking his departure.

In the house of Sevenpiper the newcomers found everything in confusion; the oldest daughter was weeping, and the other children were running over one another.

They became quieted at last, and Sevenpiper said that he was not going to allow himself to be driven out of his wits; anyhow he would no longer be a day-laborer in the vineyard; he would just do nothing for a year, and then he would see what he would take hold of. The children screamed and shouted in all sorts of ways, and Sevenpiper tried to make them sing, but not one of them was willing; all that was past and gone forever.

Eric had induced Claus to wait outside the house; he now told them what the field-guard wanted.

As soon as he made known this desire, Sevenpiper raised the window and cried out to his former comrade standing in the road:--

"If you don't clear out from here, and if you claim a single red cent from me, I'll break every bone in your carcass. Now you know what to expect! Off with you!"

No appeal was of any use; Sevenpiper insisted upon it, that he would not give Claus as much as he could put into his eye.

Roland and Eric went away exceedingly cast down. They came to the house of Claus, who was asleep on the bench. His wife lamented that he had come home very drunk, and that the cooper was half-crazed.

Neither could Eric and Roland be of any assistance here.

On the way home, Roland seized Eric's hand and said:--

"Money! money! How speedily it can ruin people!" Eric made no reply, and Roland continued:--"I never heard that there were any lotteries in America. You see, Eric, this is something that we have wholly to ourselves."

In silence, inwardly disturbed, they reached the villa. There seemed to be some ghost stalking abroad, for they could not shake off the remembrance that the demon of sudden riches had ruined two families; and immediately on waking the next morning, Roland said:--

"I should like to know how Claus and Sevenpiper will feel this morning, when they wake up."

A messenger was sent to the village, and they were gratified to hear that the two families were getting along comfortably again; but the eldest daughter of Sevenpiper had left her parents' house, and had gone to the field-guard's.

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VII. THE FIRST RIDE

Manna was extremely gracious towards everybody, and no one would have suspected that this graciousness had pride for its basis. Every one appeared to her so poor, so forlorn, so trammelled! Whenever she was spoken to, her thought of the speaker was, "You, who say this, are but a child of the world;" and whenever she took part in any pleasure excursion, there was the perpetually recurring suggestion, "You yourself are not here, you only seem to be here, you are in a wholly different world, yonder, far above."

Every one was charmed with her friendliness, her gentleness, her attentive listening, and yet only a part of herself was really taken up with all this; she was elsewhere, and occupied with other interests.

No one ventured to exert any influence over her; but the Doctor agreed with Pranken and her father, that she must again ride on horseback.

A new world seemed to be disclosed; inside the house, there was singing, dancing, playing, and outside, too, all went merry as a marriage-bell. Manna took pleasant rides on horseback with Pranken, Eric, and Roland in the country round. Sonnenkamp also, mounted on his great black horse, frequently joined the party. Their ride was full of enjoyment, and they received on all sides marks of respect, not only from those who had been the recipients of benefits through the Professorin and Fräulein Milch, but also from those who were well off and independent in their circumstances. Wherever they alighted, and wherever they reined up, there was always some fresh proof of the pride which the whole region felt in such a man as Sonnenkamp.

One day Manna, Pranken, and Roland, Eric and Sonnenkamp, were riding along the road bordered with nut-trees.

"Herr Dournay is right," exclaimed Manna, who was riding in advance with Pranken and her father.

Manna said that Eric had made the remark, that nut-trees were much more beautiful, and that it was a stupid and prosaic innovation to set out lindens and other common trees along the roads; that the nut-tree belonged to the Rhine, was beautiful and productive, and at least gave to the irrepressible boys a fine harvest time.

As she rode along she tore off a leaf of a nut-tree.

For some time her voice had been different; it was no longer as if veiled with tears. Turning to her father, she continued:--

"You can bring this about. Set out a nursery of nut-trees, and give to all the villages round as many nurslings as they can make use of."

Sonnenkamp promised to carry out the idea, and unfolded a plan which he had much at heart, of establishing general benevolent institutions, the first of which should be a fund for the widows and orphans of boatmen.

Manna stroked her beautiful white pony, to which she had given the name Snowdrop.

Pranken was happy that the horse proved itself worthy of its mistress, and voluntarily extending her hand, she thanked him for his care.

"Now trot. Snow-drop!" she cried, chirruping; and with Pranken on one side, and her father on the other, she rode boldly, rising in the saddle.

They now came in sight, of an advancing procession. Manna reined in so suddenly that she would have been thrown over her horse's head, had not Sonnenkamp held her by her riding-habit. They dismounted, and Roland and Eric were also obliged to dismount. The grooms led the horses, and Manna walked with the procession. Holding up her long riding-dress, not proudly, but humbly, she sang aloud with the pilgrims, and Pranken also. Eric was silent.

At a chapel by the way-side Manna knelt down, and Pranken also knelt by her side. When she arose, she was amazed to see that the rest had gone, leaving Pranken and her together. They were waiting in a pathway through the field, not far off, with the grooms who were holding the horses. The procession moved on, and Pranken and Manna were left alone. The murmur of the pilgrims was heard in the distance. Pranken held his hands folded together, and looked at Manna as if praying.

"Manna," he began, he had never called her Manna before. "Manna, such is to be our life. We acknowledge the grace of heaven, that we, possessed of wealth and inheriting noble names, can occupy a lofty position, but are ready every moment to unite ourselves with our brothers and sisters who walk the holy paths in coarse shoes and barefoot, and to put ourselves on a level with them. Manna, thus will we live!"

He took her hand, which she allowed him to hold an instant, and then drew it away. He continued:--

"I have never yet told you that I too have wrestled with the holy resolution to renounce the world, and to assume the priestly vow. You also, elevated and pious, have struggled, and have returned to the world. I place my heart, my soul, my soul's salvation in your hand. Here, on this consecrated spot, come with me into the chapel." He seized her hand, and at the same moment, Eric cried:--

"Fräulein Manna!"

"What's the matter? What do you want?" exclaimed Pranken.

"Fräulein Manna, your father wants me to tell you that yonder is a boundary-stone convenient for you to mount your horse."

"I shall not ride again, I shall walk back to the house," replied Manna; and turning round, whether she knew that Pranken was not following her, or did not know it, she went on with Eric. After they had gone some distance, turning round she saw Pranken still standing motionless in the place, and she called to him to come with them.

In spite of all urging, she would not mount her horse, but walked the whole distance in her heavy riding-dress.

She said nothing; there was a strange look of defiance in her countenance.

She locked herself in her room, and wept and prayed for a long time.

The struggle had come sooner than she thought, and she seemed to herself all unarmed. Pranken had a right to address her in that way. And would it not be better that she should enter into life? At this thought she looked around, as if she must ask Eric what he thought of this conclusion, what opinion he would form of this fickleness. Again she looked around, and it seemed to her that Eric had come into the room with her, and still she was alone.

It was a severe conflict, and only this one point was gained, that she would no longer allow herself to be robbed of herself by such distractions.

A boat-sail upon the Rhine had been appointed for the evening. Manna, who had promised to go, now positively declined. She stood at the window of her silent chamber without opening it, and she wished that it was grated. She saw the gentlemen and the ladies go down to the river, and heard Lina singing a beautiful song accompanied by a fine manly voice.

Who is that?

It is not Pranken, nor Roland; it can be no other than Eric.

On the boat, Lina requested Eric to sing the "Harper's Song," set to music by Schubert. Eric considered it entirely inappropriate to sing aloud here, in a joyous company upon the Rhine, the plaint of a sorely burdened soul breathed out to the lonely night.

But Lina persisted, and Eric sang,--

"He that with tears did never eat his bread."

The rowers stopped rowing, and Eric's voice thrilled the inmost soul. He paused, and then sang the words,--

"Ye lead us onward into life. Ye leave The wretch to fall; then yield him up, in woe, Remorse, and pain, unceasingly to grieve; For every sin is punished here below."

Schubert's air closes without any musical cadence, just as Goethe's words give no final solution. The strain, "For every sin is punished here below," filled the air as the boat glided past the villa. Manna heard the words, sank down, and covered her face with both hands.

Hour after hour passed away, and then some one knocked at the door. Manna waked from the sleep into which she had fallen in the midst of her anguish. It was quite dark. Roland and Lina were calling her name. Overcome by weariness of body and soul, Manna had not been able to keep from falling asleep, and now she joined the rest of the family, as if in a dream. It seemed to her as if it were morning, and yet it was night. She had a feeling of oppression in the society of those around her, all of whom looked upon her with loving eyes.

In order, as it were, to recover self-possession, she proposed another sail upon the Rhine by moonlight, and she asked Lina to sing.

Lina rejoined that she could not sing so beautifully as Eric, and that he ought to sing.

"Do sing," Manna said to him. "I cannot sing now," Eric replied.

The first request she had ever made of him he positively refused to grant. Manna was vexed at first, and then she was glad of this lack of friendliness. It is better thus; there is no reason why he should interest you in any way; you must again take the proper position in regard to him. And in order to show that she did not feel hurt by the refusal, she was more animated than she had ever been before.

When they returned from the excursion, Sonnenkamp met them as they were getting out of the boat, and told them that Sevenpiper had informed him, lest they should be taken by surprise, or be away--but no one was to know anything about it--that he was to be waited upon by the boatmen to-morrow evening, to thank him for the benevolent institution he had established.

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VIII. THOU SHALT LAUGH, DANCE, AND DRINK

"A house without a daughter is like a meadow without flowers," said the Major, who was watching, with Sonnenkamp and the Professorin, the young people playing graces in the lawn between the villa and the green cottage.

Lina had induced Manna to be present, and she was there in a bright summer suit. And Lina, together with the maid, had prevailed upon Manna to wear a deep red velvet ribbon in her black hair, and that her rich dark hair should be shown to the best advantage.

The young people formed a large circle, sending differently colored hoops swiftly through the air, and catching them upon the pretty sticks.

The Architect was present, too, having been invited at Manna's special request. No one except herself and Lina knew why this had been done.

Roland had requested Eric to join in the play; at first he declined, but Lina cried,--

"Whoever doesn't play wears a wig and is afraid of its being found out."

He made one of the circle. Pranken gave him a sort of military salute with his stick, as if it were a sword. They laughed merrily as they sprang about on the lawn, and it was a delight to the eye to witness Roland's, and, still more, Manna's graceful movements. When she looked up and reached out an arm, with her lithe and ethereal form, it appeared as if her eyes were fixed upon something else than the play; as if she were in an ecstasy, and were expecting not a hoop, but some heavenly vision. Pranken stood on her right, and Eric on her left; Pranken threw so skilfully that she always caught the hoop from him, while Eric sent it too high or too low, so that she was obliged to stoop and pick it up from the ground. It almost seemed as if he did it purposely, for in this movement Manna's grace was always displayed afresh.

Roland and Lina made fun of his clumsy play.

Lina and Roland kept up a constant running fight; she struggled with the boy as if she were a boy herself, and they tried to throw each other down in the endeavor to catch a hoop tossed beyond the circle. But Roland was not thrown down, and escaped from all her clutches as smoothly as a weasel. The Architect smiled as he looked at Lina's fawn-colored gaiter-boots. As Eric was leaping forward to catch a hoop which Manna had thrown on one side, he fell his whole length on the lawn.

Manna laughed outright.

As soon as Lina heard it she clapped her hands, exclaiming,--

"The princess is set free! Manna has, heretofore, been the princess who couldn't laugh. Captain, you've broken the spell! What name shall we give to the knight who has set our Manna free?" Lina was overflowing with merriment, and she might indeed take pride in having been the means of enlivening the whole house, and, more than all, Manna.

Eric succeeded in turning his fall into a joke, and he was at a loss, when he looked at his mother, to know why she shook her head so strangely. He had entirely forgotten how she reminded him with pride during those sad days when Bella was visiting the villa, that his father had said he had never had a fall.

Manna's cheeks had never before glowed so brightly as they did to-day; the spell upon her seemed broken; one deep, hearty, childlike burst of laughter had given her new life. She was sorely vexed, but she could make no suitable response when Lina said to Herr Sonnenkamp:--

"Your Highness! The king was obliged to give the princess in marriage to the knight who made her laugh, and public proclamation was made of it from the tower of the castle throughout all lands. Now say what you will give to Herr Dournay."

"I grant him a kiss," answered Sonnenkamp.

"Herr Dournay, you are authorized to kiss Manna, her father grants permission," Lina called out to the company.

They all stood amazed, and Sonnenkamp cried:--

"No, child, that was not my meaning. He can give you a kiss."

"I don't need your permission for that," replied Lina.

She was now entirely in her element; wherever there was any fun, any teasing, she seemed a different being, quick, inventive, excessively merry, full of fanciful suggestions; as soon, however, as the conversation took a serious turn, she always sat very quiet and attentive, but her look said:--

"All this is no doubt very fine, but I've no relish for it; I've never yet seen that people were any better off or any merrier for all their smart speeches."

They returned to the villa.

Lina had hung her hat upon a bush. The Architect carried it to her, stroking the brown ribbons, and regarding fondly the brown straw braid, and the artificial vine-leaves, of a brown autumnal tint. He handed the hat to Lina, and while doing it they pressed each other's hands, as the Architect said that he must go to the castle again, in order to make some arrangements for the next day. For an instant only, Lina looked thoughtfully after him, and then, giving her head a toss, she bounded up the steps and went into the music saloon. Placing herself at the piano, she played a dancing tune, for the day must be wound off with a dance; the release of the princess who had not been able to laugh must be celebrated with a dance, and Lina was so self-denying as to be willing herself to play. When Pranken now came up to Manna and jestingly invited her to dance, Lina jumped up from the piano.

"No, that won't do! The knight of philosophy gone to grass; he who freed the princess, he must come first."

Lina would not have it otherwise. Manna had first to dance with Eric, and the Aunt was obliging enough to play for them, so that Lina could dance too. With a very roguish, saucy courtesy, she challenged Herr von Pranken, who took her arm without any hesitation, and danced with her behind Eric and Manna.

"I can't realize that I am dancing," said Manna, as she floated rather than danced round the great hall.

"Nor can I," replied Eric.

Manna broke the pause which ensued, by saying:--

"Lina sets us all crazy."

Pranken now came and asked her to dance; she was still somewhat out of breath. He held her hand until he began to whirl with her in the dance. Roland was delighted that Lina was free, and the Aunt must still keep playing for him to dance with Lina, as he was unwilling to stop.

Sonnenkamp was quite happy as he stood there in the music-saloon; and he said to the Professorin that this was all so pleasant, and he had never thought that he should see his children dancing in this hall. He had sent to Frau Ceres, who would like to be a looker on, too. She came, and Pranken and Manna must dance again in her presence.

Sonnenkamp praised the happy suggestion of his wife, that she should give a grand ball in honor of Manna; but Manna decidedly opposed this, and the wise Lina, happy in her triumph, begged the parents in a low tone not to urge Manna any further to-day, and she would bring everything about in good season.

After tea, Lina wanted to have another dance; she would like to keep up all night, and that Sonnenkamp should telegraph to the garrison to have the military band sent by an extra train.

She was to-day so full of buoyant sprightliness, and so overflowing with cheerfulness, that even Eric, who had heretofore regarded her with indifference, approached her in a very friendly mood.

"Yes," she said, "do you remember that time? Would you have believed that you should ever have danced with your winged apparition? Isn't she a heavenly creature? Ah, and if you ever know her as she used to be, so full of glee! Ah, I am delighted to think that you will fall so deeply in love with Manna,--oh, so deeply in love,--so dead in love. Will you promise me something?"

"What, for instance?"

"That you will tell me the very first day when you fall in love."

"But if I should fall in love with you, what then?"

"Come, don't talk so. I am much too stupid for you. I should have been smart enough for Herr von Pranken, but I am engaged, and out of the question. Hasn't Manna told you anything about me?"

Eric said she had not, and Lina continued:--

"Yes, do this, do it out of regard for me, and snatch Manna away from Baron von Pranken. I beg of you, do it for my sake."

"What are you laughing at so merrily?" said Manna, coming up to them. "I have begun to laugh to-day, and now I should like to keep you company."

"Tell her," said Lina with a nod. As Eric was silent, she continued:--

"He can tell you, but he is awfully reserved and profound. Don't let him have any peace, Manna, until he has told you. Herr Captain, if you don't tell at once, then I'll tell."

"I have that confidence in your sense of propriety," said Eric very seriously, "that I do not believe you would wantonly turn a joke into sober earnest."

Lina's whole mien changed, and she said:

"Ah, Manna, he is so awfully learned! My father says so too, and he sees people through and through. Don't you sometimes feel afraid of him?"

Without making any reply, Manna took Lina's arm and went with her through the garden, Lina chatting, joking, and singing incessantly, like a nightingale in the shrubbery.

After Manna had gone to her room, it seemed to her there that the pictures on the wall looked at her and asked: Who can this be? She shut out the dumb pictures by closing her eyes, threw herself upon her knees, and a voice within her seemed to say: It must be thus; thou art to become acquainted with the world, and all the vain delights of life, in order to gain the victory over them. Yet she felt down-hearted, for in the midst of her contrite prayer she seemed to hear the lively waltzes sounding in her ears, and she heard a burst of laughter. Could it have been she herself who had so laughed?

The next day she had to enter into fresh gaieties.

In the afternoon they drove to the castle, and there the Architect contrived a new delight. He was a genuine priest of the May-bowl, and with a sort of solemnity he mixed the various ingredients of the fragrant beverage. The whole company sat upon a projecting wall of the castle, and looked out upon the broadly-extending landscape, while Lina, in her exuberant joyousness, sang and caroled without intermission. She sang in the open air, as a general thing, better than in a room; and she had a good accompaniment, for she sang a duett with the Architect.

Eric was again asked to sing, and again he declined.

Lina induced Manna to drink a whole glass of May-wine, and said, in joke, that if she could only get Manna once a little intoxicated, the old Manna, or, more properly, the young Manna, would again show herself. She seemed ready to make her appearance, but Manna had strength enough to hold herself in restraint, though she laughed to-day at Lina's most trifling jokes.

Roland nodded to Eric, but he whispered to him that he must not call attention to Manna's cheerfulness, as that would put an end to it.

Wreaths were woven, and Lina recalled the time when Eric first came to Wolfsgarten; with wreaths on their heads they all drove from the castle back to the villa.

At the last declivity. Manna bounded lightly down the hill and Lina after her; at the foot the latter embraced her old schoolmate, saying to her:--

"You are released! You have done the three best things in the world; you have laughed, danced, and drunk--no, this is not the best; the best is yet to come."

And again Manna burst into a ringing laugh.

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IX. DEMONSTRATION OF RESPECT FROM BELOW

When a person is to be surprised in the evening by a demonstration of respect, what does he do in the morning?

Sonnenkamp must pretend not to notice anything, but nevertheless, he watched the barometer very closely. It had been raining, and now the mercury was rising; it is clearing off, and the proposed demonstration will come off beautifully. If one only knew beforehand the address which would be made this evening, one could get ready a suitable response. Princes have the advantage of receiving beforehand any address that is to be presented. Sonnenkamp, however, was confident that the occasion would suggest to him a suitable reply. He had never regarded the honor that comes from men; he had honored himself, so far as there is any need of honor at all. Should he now feel any concern about it? And by what was this respect obtained?

By money!

Had he not a superfluity of that? it was very evident that their eyes would not be turned upon him.

He rode out at the usual hour, but he did not follow his usual route, and without being aware of it, he cast amiable glances upon all the people he met; he had a new accession of benevolent feeling. He rode to the castle, and looked smilingly around, involuntarily fancying to himself with what delight the knights formerly returned home from their raids; they were strong, fierce, courageous men.

Not far from the ruins he turned aside into the wood, for he saw that a large flag was floating over the battlements of the only completed tower, and there were no men visible. He wandered about in the wood, leading his horse by the bridle. He himself could not have told what there passed through his mind. Here walks a man in the wood, silent, alone, lost in thought, and this evening hundreds and hundreds of men will honor him with cheers.

The Major lay in wait for him as he was returning, and insisted upon his going home with him. The Major had the air of a groomsman, who has made every preparation for the wedding, and now, confident that all the requisite arrangements have been made, retires with the bridegroom into the quiet apartment until he shall be summoned by the full band.

The dinner to-day was not so well served as usual, but Sonnenkamp took no notice of it, not wanting to show that he knew of the preparations for the evening celebration.

In the afternoon there were present the neighbouring families of the Cabinetsrath, the Justice and his wife, the Doctor, and the Major, who had absented himself for a brief period and now appeared with all his decorations. Many others came also; even the young widow, the daughter of Herr von Endlich, was there, in her widow's weeds, having come to spend a few weeks in the summer with her parents in the country. Pranken had invited the best society in the vicinity, for he knew that this public recognition of his renown was very agreeable to Herr Sonnenkamp. All were present, however, as if by accident, and Sonnenkamp allowed this tacitly understood lie to pass.

Pranken was particularly attentive to the beautiful young widow, and made the most of his position as son of the house. He was glad, as he once caught Manna's glance, that she had an opportunity of perceiving what temptations and charms were offered to him; and the words which he made use of in introducing Manna to the young widow seemed to him very well chosen. He said,--

"You, gracious lady, and Fräulein Sonnenkamp are just fitted to be friends; for Fräulein Sonnenkamp has also a maturity of mind far beyond her years."

The young widow was very gracious to Manna, and Pranken left them by themselves, for he had a great deal to attend to as son of the house.

He had given orders to the cook to have in readiness an ample provision of roast meats and common wines, and he had looked out also for the cigars. Sonnenkamp knew everything that was going on, but pretended to see and hear nothing.

When evening came, Pranken, in presence of all, requested the father--such was the word he made use of emphatically--to remain in his room until he should be sent for. Very modestly, bashfully, and indulgently, Sonnenkamp betook himself to his room.

Long tables were now set in the courtyard, and food and drink were spread upon them, for the boats fastened together and gondolas were already coming down from the upper Rhine, and music was heard in the distance. The boats arranged themselves in front of the villa.

When it was dark, torches and parti-colored lamps, like a garland of fire, were hung upon the vessels.

Sonnenkamp was alone in his room, and he was continually trying to imagine what sort of an address would be made to him, and he repeated half aloud to himself his reply.

Approaching footsteps were now heard, and the Major and the Justice made their appearance. The Major said that they would bear him company for a while, and the Justice added that it must certainly touch him very deeply, for he would be obliged to be an actual witness of the gratitude which the hearts of so many people, struggling for the means of living, felt towards him. Sonnenkamp expressed his thanks, and smoked away quietly, holding his cigar very tenderly, as if he felt bashful even in its presence.

He begged his friends to excuse him for not being able to entertain them; that he had lived so many years abroad, and now it almost overwhelmed him to have found a home in so many staunch hearts; and he did not deserve it, for he had given nothing but a little wretched money. The Justice wanted to make a reply, but the Major nodded to him to omit it. In such moments, he whispered to him, a man must be expected to make some extravagant speeches, and it is sufficient to listen quietly to what he says; and besides, he saw that Sonnenkamp was conning over the speech which he was soon to get off.

Several heavy footsteps were now heard, and Pranken said, opening the door,--

"This way, my men."

A deputation of boatmen entered, headed by Sevenpiper, and he begged Sonnenkamp to be so kind as to allow them to present to him a tribute of their grateful respect. With eyes cast down, and as if weighed down by the burden of honor heaped upon him, amidst the boatmen dressed in their light-colored clothes, Sonnenkamp went down the steps into the park.

Here a beautiful scene presented itself to his view. The boatmen were standing in the boats illuminated by differently colored lights, and singing in chorus a song which sounded on the distant air. Sonnenkamp stood there with folded hands, looking straight before him; and then he separated his hands, and rubbed the ring on the thumb of his right hand, which pained him. The song ended, and a cheer was called for in honor of the great benefactor. The cannons roared, and the reports were echoed and re-echoed from the mountains, so that it was proclaimed through the land as with a voice of thunder up the river and down.

Sonnenkamp returned his thanks in a brief but hearty speech; Roland stood at his right hand and Manna at his left. He placed his right hand upon the shoulder of his son, by this means hiding the thumb, and with the other hand he took Manna's; he concluded with the request that the good neighbors would be pleased to extend their kindness also to his children.

A lad, who was standing at the helm, wearing the clothes which Roland had sent him on his birthday, now called for a cheer for Roland; again the cannons fired. Roland said to the Major: I cannot make a speech. He went down, and got on board the boat and shook hands with the men; and he now perceived, for the first time, that Eric was on the boat. He sat behind the others and had assisted them in singing; the school-teacher, Fassbender, was sitting with him.

They all now came on shore. The boatmen, with a band of music, marched through the park to the tables that had been spread for their entertainment. Sonnenkamp immediately gave orders, and in a sharp tone, that the chairs should be removed.

"It isn't necessary for them to sit down," said he to Pranken; "I had imagined you would have thought of that. Have them out of the way soon. You can't trust these common people, they soon get out of order. Let the wine be taken on board the boats, and there they may get as crazy as they please."

At the first glass Sevenpiper proposed the health of Frau Sonnenkamp, and Sonnenkamp returned thanks in her behalf from the outside steps, and expressed his regret that his wife, on account of illness, could not be present. He begged them to be as quiet as possible, for she was very sensitive. A damper was thus put upon the merriment, and Eric led the men back to the boats. They took their departure, the cannons roared, the music struck up, and then all was again still at the villa.

They sat in a friendly circle in the grand saloon, and Sonnenkamp looked more used up than he had ever been before; his features lighted up, however, when the Major, who had a happy thought, said,--

"This must all be reported by a good hand in the newspaper! You, Comrade," turning to Eric, "you will certainly do it up finely. Not a word; you must."

Eric explained that he had no intention of refusing; he had only wanted to do of his own accord what the Major had suggested. The Major gave him a violent grip of the hand, and did not drop it until Eric said,--

"If you squeeze my hand any longer, I shall not be able to write to-morrow."

The Major went to Eric's mother, and commended him for having sung with the people; he only regretted that Fräulein Milch had not been a spectator of the beautiful celebration, but she was stiff-necked in regard to everything connected with the Sonnenkamp house. He could not imagine why it was; she was in every other respect so kind towards everybody.

The Professorin knew why Fräulein Milch stayed away, and it gave her a severe twinge, that she herself had to be present, and that her son was to proclaim the fame of this man, who, in all that he did, had an entirely different end in view from what Eric imagined. She looked at the man, at his children, and at the whole company, and could not help thinking how it would be, if, instead of these salutes of cannon in his honor that now echoed in the night, a wholly different report should be heard over mountain and valley.

The company at last departed. Roland and Eric accompanied the Mother home. Roland was brimful of joy over this tribute of universal respect, and Eric took care to impress upon him again how great a happiness it was, to be able so to make other people happy. Roland spoke of the intention of his father to set out walnut trees throughout the whole region, and complained that he himself seemed to be like Alexander of Macedon, who found fault with his father, Philip, for leaving nothing for him to do. The Mother and Eric rejoiced at this awakened zeal of the youth, and when he took leave, the Mother shed tears as she kissed him.

"What was the matter with your mother, that she was so sad all the evening?" said Roland, as they were returning home.

"She has lost the key-note of joy," replied Eric.

That very night he wrote a spirited account of the benevolent Institution, and the cheerful festivities, and sent it to Professor Crutius at the capital. The next day but one, the journal came to the villa. Sonnenkamp thanked Eric for his well-written communication, and Roland begged,--

"Give me the paper; I will keep it for a perpetual remembrance. I am so glad that I am going to be a soldier. If I win battles, it will be published in the papers, and the scholars will be obliged to hear of my name, and of my deeds, just like those of Miltiades, and Washington, and Napoleon."

There was another communication published in the official gazette, and Pranken did not deny that he was the author of it. What Eric had written was every way fine, but this communication came to the eyes of the Prince, and so was of far greater importance, and soon showed its results.

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X. THE VICTORIA REGIA IN BLOOM

The Cabinetsräthin proved herself to be grateful and well informed; she showed to Sonnenkamp a letter from her husband, in which he stated that the Prince had read with great satisfaction the account of the Institution and the popular celebration. But a much more important point was, that the Prince expressed the intention of paying a visit in person to the famous green-houses and fruit-plantations of Sonnenkamp. This must be kept a profound secret, but it was very proper that Sonnenkamp should be informed of it. He sent back the request that the visit of the Prince should be announced by a telegram.

He seemed to himself now a prisoner in his own domains. He had had no idea of leaving the villa until it was time for him to set out for the Baths, but now it seemed to him that he might be called suddenly away, and the Prince would be sure to come during his absence.

He gave precise orders, and promised a special remuneration for the speediest forwarding of any telegram from the capital; but day after day passed, and none came. Everything had resumed its quiet routine, but Sonnenkamp was constantly in a state of feverish excitement. Pranken wanted to go away, but remained at Sonnenkamp's request, who imparted to him, in the strictest confidence, what distinguished visitors he was expecting.

Pranken endured very patiently Manna's aversion to any decided advances towards intimacy; he was glad to perceive that she treated Eric with special coolness, for after those days of harmless and merry enjoyment, she had withdrawn into her life of strict penitential seclusion; and if she chanced to meet Eric, her countenance at once became darkened.

Sonnenkamp went through the park, the orchard and the green-houses, and would have been glad to beseech all the plants to be in a beautiful and a fresh condition when their Highnesses arrived; and his old predilection for grubbing in the earth with his sack-like garment was indulged with great circumspection.

He was sitting in the hot-house, and saying to himself how very quiet he would be, if the Prince, as was scarcely to be doubted, should bring into the house his diploma of nobility. And as he thus sat meditating with himself, there was a strange rustling in the air; a gentle, scarcely perceptible crackling was noticed, and Sonnenkamp cried out,--

"It has burst open!"

The Victoria Regia had bloomed. He saw the flower, he took delight in it, and yet he shook his head in vexation. Why couldst thou not wait, and open at the very instant when the Prince was standing here? One ought to be able to compel nature! That would be the thing!

He sent a carriage immediately for the Cabinetsräthin, and she came. She found the whole family, Frau Ceres included, in amazement at the sight of the wonderful flower; and she too was enraptured.

Sonnenkamp explained to her that the Victoria Regia was white when it first bloomed, and closed its flower at night; that during the second night it opened again, and was then of a rose-color. For four days a new flower appeared each day, and the former flower sank down under water.

He took the Cabinetsräthin aside; she must immediately inform the Court of the event. Now there was a special inducement for the Prince to come.

At evening, the tidings were sent that the Prince and the Princess were coming the next day; but they would take it very ill, if any one should give it to be understood that this was anything more than a mere casual visit.

Sonnenkamp heaved a deep sigh; if all was to appear accidental, then the Prince would not bring with him the patent of a nobility, for that required previous preparation, many formalities, and sessions of the Commission on Orders. But perhaps all that was a matter of secrecy, which the Cabinetsräthin was not allowed to disclose.

The well-posted neighbor did not consider this probable, and so Sonnenkamp's peculiar satisfaction in all this was utterly destroyed. Then one must keep doing forever some new thing, must wait, and use fresh exertions. He was so vexed, that he feared he should be uncivil to the Prince. He impressed upon himself the necessity of the greatest self-control that no vexation and impatience should appear.

In the morning, after an almost sleepless night, Sonnenkamp issued directions that no one should leave the house on that day, and in a measure commanded Frau Ceres not to be sick. He went to the Professorin and begged her to do the honors of the house, confessing to her whom he was expecting, and saying that he could have no secrets with her.

The Professorin shuddered all over, and her look said:--

"You dare to tell me that, when I know----"

But she restrained herself, and placed herself at the disposal of Herr Sonnenkamp.

He waited in the garden in front of the green cottage until the Professorin had changed her dress; and she wore to-day, for the first time, a miniature in pastel of her deceased husband. She accompanied Sonnenkamp to the villa, and Frau Ceres was exceedingly surprised to see her at so unusual an hour.

The Professorin had obtained permission to inform Frau Ceres of the expected visit, and the lady wished to deck herself with all her jewels. It was very hard to convince her that she ought to be dressed with great simplicity.

A telegram from the Cabinetsräthin at the capital informed them that the royal party had set out.

It was now a matter of certainty. Eric, Roland, and Manna were also informed, and Eric wished to remain in his room.

"Perhaps you expect to be summoned?" said Pranken sharply.

"I expect nothing but civility, where I am not aware of having done anything to offend," replied Eric, courteously.

Pranken tossed his head slightly; he had, in fact, fully made up his mind: This person must be off; the man is becoming a nuisance; but this tutor's family have nestled themselves in here, like caterpillars in a bee-hive, and there's nothing to be done but smoke them out.

Pranken was the only one who was composed and self-possessed; he was the chamberlain and the Baron von Pranken, and all the rest were nothing but wretched underlings.

Manna especially was restless; and today, for the first time, she was confidential towards Pranken.

She expressed her satisfaction that the whole household had such a noble support to lean upon.

Pranken was freshly inspirited by these words,

"You will like being at Court," he said to Manna.

And Sonnenkamp, who was standing not far off, added immediately:--

"Yes, my child, you will receive delight and honor at the side of the most honored and most beloved nobleman."

Manna cast down her eyes. Then Roland came up, dressed completely in white.

"Just see how handsome he is," said Manna to Pranken.

Roland was full of confidence, and exhorted Manna not to be so timid: their royal Highnesses were very gracious, and after the first words, one had the feeling that he was with his own comrades.

Lootz was stationed on the flat roof of the house to look out, and now he came hurriedly down, exclaiming:--

"They are coming!" They separated as if no one was expected.

Two carriages drove into the courtyard. Sonnenkamp hastened down the outside steps, but stumbled on the lowest one, and had to hold on by the railing.

What is the meaning of this?

A black face!

Where does this come from?

"Come! Come!" cried Pranken, who was hurrying after him. "Their royal Highnesses are already getting up."

He reached the carriage at just the right moment, and had the honor of being able to take the hand of the Prince as he was getting out of the carriage. The Princess got out at the other side, with Pranken's assistance, and expressed in gracious words how much satisfaction she took in being able for once to see the place, and the man in his own house, whence proceeded so much that was excellent and beneficent to the people.

The Princess, who cherished a special zeal for the benevolent institutions of the land, considered herself bound to express her thanks for Sonnenkamp's generous expenditures. She would have preferred that he should have devoted his munificent outlays to institutions already established by her, instead of founding new ones. It was a decided oversight of Pranken's not to have taken that into consideration.

There was a slight tone of dissatisfaction in the remark of the Princess, that she was always glad when new institutions were founded.

Frau Ceres had approached, accompanied by Manna.

The Princess addressed a few words to Frau Ceres, and then said to Manna that she looked wholly different from her brother, except that her eyes were like his.

"But where is Roland?"

He was now seen coming down the steps; he was urgently requesting Eric to go with him, while Eric and the Mother bade him go alone.

He obeyed, and was welcomed by their royal Highnesses in a very cordial manner.

The Prince went towards the house, where the Professorin was standing on the steps with Eric; he went up to her with quick step, holding out both hands, and saying how glad he was to see her again; then, pointing to the miniature, he added that he cherished a most grateful remembrance of its subject, and wore his image not on but in his breast. Eric seemed to be hardly noticed, till a glance from his mother said, "Speak to my son," and the Prince turned to him with the words:--

"I hope, dear Dournay, that you have a better pupil than your excellent father had in me."

Eric found nothing to say in reply, but bowed in silence. Pranken approached, and asked:--

"Will your Highness see the Park and the Victoria Regia in bloom first, or the house?"

"Ask the Princess," was the answer.

Pranken moved with great deference towards the other group, catching Manna's bright glance, which followed him everywhere. Where was Eric now? There stood the poor fellow, and it was laughable to think of his daring to aspire to an equality with a Pranken.

The Princess said that, after her drive, she would prefer to go into the house first.

They repaired to the balcony room, where a breakfast stood ready, and Sonnenkamp had the audacity to beg their Highnesses to accept with favor such a simple and extempore repast as a commoner could offer them.

Frau Ceres was favored with a seat at the Prince's right hand, and the Professorin was seated at his left; the Princess sat between Sonnenkamp and Roland.

Eric was fortunate enough to find, among the gentlemen in attendance, a former comrade to converse with.

"You must enter the military school soon," said the Prince, addressing Roland.

Sonnenkamp looked fixedly at him; the Prince knew very well when Roland was to enter, and every moment Sonnenkamp expected to see a sign given to one of the chamberlains to hand him his patent of nobility, but it did not come. The Prince talked very earnestly with the Professorin, expressing his regret that a lady of such rare spiritual and mental endowments should have withdrawn from Court.

They soon rose from the table, and Sonnenkamp was made happy by the Prince's praise of his green-house and park, and his skilful fruit culture. Suddenly, in the orchard, the Prince asked the Professorin:--

"Where is your sister-in-law, the beautiful Claudine?"

"She is close by; she lives with me in the house in which Herr Sonnenkamp has established us."

"We will call upon her," said the Prince, abruptly; and they went through the new gate, across the meadows, to the green cottage.

The Aunt was very much surprised, but retained her quiet self-possession. The Prince told her that he could never think of harp-playing without at the same time thinking of Fräulein Claudine; one of the pleasantest recollections of his youth was of seeing and hearing her, as she sat with her long curls, on a tabouret in his mother's room; it was the prettiest bit of romance among his childish memories. Then again he expressed his gratitude to the sister of his teacher, and extolled Herr Sonnenkamp's good fortune in having two such noble ladies as neighbors.

The Prince sincerely desired to make people happy, and he believed that he could do so with his porcelain flowers of speech; he was perfectly convinced that from this day forth Aunt Claudine would feel an unexampled satisfaction and happiness.

He remained a long time at the cottage, and gave orders that the carriages should follow him, that they might start from there on their return.

Eric, who had not been asked to join the party, remained behind at the villa, and talked with a tall coal-black negro, named Adams.

The negro, who wore a fantastic livery, soon became confidential, and said that he had been a member of a circus company, and was much applauded for his bold leaps, and his extraordinary strength; the brother of the Prince, when travelling in America, had bought his freedom, and he was now the Prince's favorite footman. His only trouble was that his wife, a white woman who had loved him dearly, and his child were dead, and he should never get another wife.

Eric had never before spoken to a man who had been a slave, and he could not help saying how much it moved him to do so.

While Eric was talking with the negro, he little thought that he was being talked of in the green cottage; his aunt resolutely turned the conversation upon him, and told the Prince what a man he had become. As the guests were about to enter their carriage, the Prince said, in quite a loud voice, to the Professorin:--

"Where is your son? Tell him that I should be very glad to prove to him how well I remember our boyish companionship."

The Princess' party drove off. The tall negro, who was sitting behind the carriage, gazed back for a long time. Sonnenkamp was much out of temper, and said to Pranken that this visit from the Prince had taken an incomprehensible turn, which he could not understand; he was unused to such things. It was clear that it had left him in most decided ill-humor.

When they returned to the villa. Manna went to Eric and said,--

"The Prince left a special message for you with your mother, and you are to remember that you were his comrade in boyhood."

Eric answered with frank cordiality:--

"The only gratifying circumstance about the Prince's gracious message, Fräulein Manna, is, that you bring it to me."

All looked surprised at this friendly dialogue between Eric and Manna. Pranken ground his teeth, and clenched his fists at the ready audacity of the tutor.

"Where have you been?" asked Sonnenkamp, in a tone of reproof.

"I have been talking with the Prince's servant."

Sonnenkamp gave him a peculiar look, and then went to his green-house.

Pranken announced that he must now take his departure; he evidently expected Manna to raise some opposition, but she said nothing. So he rode off, leaving a strange feeling of disturbance behind him at the villa.

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