g to
leave the sisterhood and marry Daniel Scheible."

Nothing is so surprising to a prophet as the fulfillment of his most
confident prediction. Jael looked all aghast, and her face splintered
into the most contradictory lines in the effort to give expression to
the most conflicting emotions.

"I'm astonished at you," she said reprovingly, when she got breath.

"Why, I thought you expected it," replied Tabea.

"Will you break your vow?"

"Yes. Why shouldn't a woman break a vow made by a girl? And so,
good-by, Sister Jael. Can't you wish me much joy?"

But Jael turned sharply away in a horror that could find no utterance.

Thecla laughed, as was her wont, and wished Tabea happiness, but
intimated that Daniel was a bold man to undertake to subdue the
Hofcavalier. Sister Persida's woman's heart was set all a-flutter, and
she quite forgot that she was trying to be a nun, and that she belonged
to the solitary and forsaken turtledove in the wilderness. She
whispered in Tabea's ear: "You'll look so nice when you're married,
dear, and Daniel will be so pleased, and the young men will steal your
slipper off your foot at the dinner table, and how I wish I could be
there to see you married! But oh, Tabea! I don't see how you dare to
face them all! I'd just run away with all my might if I were in your
place."

And so each one took the startling intelligence according to her
character, and soon all work was suspended, and every inmate of Sharon
was gathered in unwonted excitement in the halls and the common room.

When Tabea passed out of the low-barred door of Sharon she met the
radiant face of Scheible, who had tied his two saddle horses a little
way off.

"Come quickly, Tabea," he said with impatience.

"No, Daniel; it won't do to be rude. I must tell Brother Friedsam
good-by."

"No, don't," said Daniel, turning pale with terror. "If you go in to
see the director you will never come with me."

"Why won't I?" laughed the defiant girl.

"He's a wizard, and has charms that he gets out of his great books.
Don't go in there; you'll never get away."

Daniel held to the Pennsylvania Dutch superstitions, but Tabea only
laughed, and said, "I am not afraid of wizards." She looked the
Hofcavalier more than ever as she left the trembling fellow and went up
to the door of Brother Friedsam's lodge.

"She isn't afraid of the _devil_," muttered Scheible.

Tabea knocked at the door.

"Come in and welcome, whoever thou art