through life, combating
with difficulties. Once I bound myself to a friend--he deserted
me, and thence grew the rock about my heart; thence became my
demeanour severe, unattractive, and rough. Is it to remain so
always? Will my life never bloom upon earth? Will no breath of
heaven call forth my roses?

"Do you fear my melancholy temperament? Oh, you have not seen how
a glance, a word of yours chases every cloud from my brow; not
because you are beautiful, but because you are good and pure. Will
you teach me to be good? I will learn willingly from you! From you
I would learn to love mankind, and to find more good in the world
than I have hitherto done. I will live for you, if not for the
world. By my wish the world should know nothing of me till the
cross upon my grave told 'here rests----'

"Oh, it is beautiful to live nameless under the poisoned glance of
the world; poisoned, whether it praise or blame; beautiful, not to
be polluted by its observation, but more beautiful to be
intimately known to one--to possess one gentle and honest friend,
and that one a wife! Beautiful to be able to look into her pure
soul as in a mirror, and to be aware there of every blot on one's
own soul, and to be able thus to purify it against the day of the
great trial.

"But I speak only of myself and my own happiness. Ah, the
egotist--the cursed egotist! Can I make you happy also, Eva? Is it
not audacity in me to desire--ah, Eva, I love you inexpressibly!

"I leave the egotist in your hand: do with him what you will, he
will still remain

"Yours."

This letter made Eva very anxious and uneasy. She would so willingly
have said yes, and made so good a man happy, but then so many voices
within her said no!

She spoke with her parents, with her brother and sisters. "He is so
good, so excellent!" said she. "Ah, if I could but properly love him!
But I cannot--and then he is so old; and I have no desire to marry; I am
so happy in my own home."

"And do not leave it!" was the unanimous chorus of all the family. The
father, indeed, was actually desperate with all this courtship; and the
mother thought it quite absurd that her blooming Eva and Jeremias Munter
should go together. No one voice spoke for the Assessor but the little
Petrea's, and a silent sigh