"Heaven knows," said the Professorin, "I would not wound you; no,
protecting and blessing you, would I lay my hand upon you."

She tried to place her hand on Manna's head, but the girl shrank back
and cried:--

"Tell me distinctly, who knows it? What do you know? Pray speak."

"I know nothing, except that you had to suffer severely on your
entrance into the convent; that two American girls took you for a
half-blood, and would not associate with you."

"Yes, yes, that's it! Now I know why they examined my nails, and Anna
Sotway stood by, Oh, it's well! it's well! I thank thee, holy God, that
thou hast suffered me to experience this. In myself, in my own person,
I was to feel the suffering that a slave feels in being examined! Why
did they not open my veins? I thank thee, O God! But why dost thou
suffer them to worship thee, and then to scorn thee in thy creatures?
Then it was not because I tried to be reverent and obedient, no, but
because I was of pure blood, that I was tolerated here! Pah!"

It was a different being who spoke these words, and cried aloud in the
wood:--

"Ye trees, why does each of you grow after its kind, and blossom and
grow green and flourish, warmed by the same sun, and with the birds
singing in your branches? Alas! alas! where am I?"

"In the right path," answered the Professorin. Manna gazed at her as if
she were a spirit, and she continued:--

"A pure spirit is speaking again through you, my child; you have spoken
truth. When Lessing said, 'I would not have all trees covered with the
same bark,' he had no presentiment that his spirit would manifest
itself anew here in the cloister, in a child just waking to life. His
pure and holy spirit is between us now, my child, and I think Lessing
would say: Forgive them; they will learn that God alone is constant,
while the races of men are only the ever-varying, ever-returning
figures of a dream."

Manna appeared hardly to have heard her, for now she grasped her arm
asking:--

"Did you not tell me, that you were specially in the confidence of my
mother?"

"Yes."

"And has she told you the secret too?"

"I do not understand you."

"Speak openly with me. I know all."

"Your mother has told me no secret."

Manna seized the cross on her breast convulsively, and gazed silently
before her for a long time.

With heart-felt earnestness, the Professorin expressed her deep regret
at having moved her so greatly, and her desire not to force her