recall reminiscences
of their youth, she had replied that she knew the past no longer; she
had destroyed all its mementoes, and recognized only a future, the sole
object that ought to occupy our thoughts.

The Superior noticed that this distant manner of speaking startled her
old friend, and she said, with the same composure, that she made no
distinction among the relations and acquaintances of her early life; no
one was nearer to her or farther from her, and that any one who could
not attain this state ought not to devote herself to a spiritual life.

The Professorin felt as if she had been turned off and shown out of the
house, but she was calm enough to say:--

"Yes, you always had a strength of mind which used to frighten me, but
now I admire it."

The Superior smiled; then, as if angry at having been betrayed into any
self-satisfaction by this civil speech, she said,--

"Dear Clara, I beg you not to tempt me into vanity. I stand at my post,
and have a strict watch to keep, until the Lord of Hosts shall call me
to himself. Formerly, I must confess, I did not realize that you and I
lived in different worlds; in mine, it is one's duty not to rely on
one's own strength."

With all this self-denial, it seemed to the Professorin that the
Superior spoke of the power and the greatness of the sphere in
which she moved, with that pride, or at least with that lofty
self-confidence, shown by all who belong to a great and powerful
community. To the Superior, on the other hand, she seemed like an
isolated, detached atom, floating it knew not whither.

They soon found, however, a point on which they could sympathize, in
speaking of the difficult task of educating the young.

The Superior was rich in experience, while the Professorin depended
almost entirely on the precepts and opinions of her departed husband;
and now that she took the attitude of a scholar, and listened
gratefully, gentler thoughts rose within the Superior, who had felt
that she had been somewhat harsh towards the excellent woman; and in
this mood, she imparted some things that she really meant to hold back.
She told Frau Dournay that, at first, Manna's position in the convent
had been a very hard one, for a strange thing had happened. Her
entrance into the convent seemed to bring about a revolution. Two
Americans from the best families were then there, and they were not
willing to sit at the same table with the Creole, for such Manna
seemed; they told