ed in connection with Eva's future.
Here it had formed from rude iron the fairest of flowers. Nothing sweeter
or lovelier, the sister thought, could be made from her darling. But
would the fire also possess the power to lead Eva, as it were, from
heaven to earth, and transform her into an energetic woman, symmetrical
in thought and deed? And what was the necessity? She was there to guide
her and remove every stone from her path.

Ah, if she should renounce the cloister and find a husband like her
Wolff! Again and again she read his greeting and pressed the beloved
sheet to her lips. She would fain have hastened to her mother's corpse to
show it to her. But just at that moment Eva returned. She must rejoice
with her over this beautiful confirmation of her hope, and as, with
flushed cheeks and brow moist with perspiration, she stood before her,
Els tenderly embraced her and, overflowing with gratitude, showed her her
lover's gift and verse, and invited her to share the great happiness
which so brightly illumined the darkness of her grief. Eva, who was so
weary that she could scarcely stand thought, like her sister, as Els read
Wolff's lines aloud, of her mother's last words. But the forge fire of
life must not transform her into a rose; she would become harder, firmer,
and she knew why and for whose sake. Only yesterday, had she been so
exhausted, nothing would have kept her, after a few brief words to
prevent Els's disappointment, from lying down, arranging her pillows
comfortably, and refreshing herself with some cooling drink; but now she
not only succeeded in appearing attentive, but in sympathising with all
her heart in her sister's happiness. How delightful it was, too, to be
able to give something to the person from whom hitherto she had only
received.

She succeeded so fully in concealing the struggle against the claims of
her wearied body that Els, after joyously perceiving how faithfully her
sister sympathised with her own delight, continued to relate what she had
just heard. Eva forced herself to listen and behave as if her account of
Heinz Schorlin's wonderful escape and desire to enter a monastery was
news to her.

Not until Els had narrated the last detail did she admit that she needed
rest; and when the former, startled by her own want of perception, urged
her to lie down, she would not do so until she had put the flowers she
had brought home into water. At last she stretched herself on the couch
beside