right of it, when she
urged him to stay at home to-day.

"How comfortable it would be to be sitting in the arm-chair, in which
Laadi is now lying! And one might have been asleep two hours ago, and
now it will be midnight before one gets home! And there's Fraeulein
Milch sitting up, and sitting up, till he comes in. It was like being
saved, when he took out his watch, and could say how late it was."

The Professorin came back at this moment, and told Roland that his
mother wished to see him. Roland went to her.

Eric accompanied his mother and the rest, as they set out for home
through the snowy night.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BIRD OF NIGHT IS SHOT.

Eric walked in silence with the ladies. The Mother spoke first,
saying,--

"I am glad that here, again, I have words of your father's to support
me. Nothing is more weakening and more to be avoided than repentance,"
he often said; "the acknowledgment that we have made a mistake must
come, quick and sharp, but then we must reconcile ourselves to
circumstances. I have deeply repented no matter how much good I may do,
that I have bound myself to this family so firmly that any drawing back
or loosening of the ties is extremely difficult. But now that it is
done, we must endeavor to make everything turn out for the best."

The Aunt, who spoke but little, added how painful it was that people
over whose lives hung some dark crime were banished, as it were, from
the kingdom of the spirit; and must meet everywhere with terrible
reminders.

They went on again for a while in silence. High above, from the
mountain crest, they heard the screech-owl, the harbinger of extreme
cold, uttering his dreadful cry; which rose and died away with a
mingled tone of lamentation and of triumph. The party stood still.

"Ah," said Eric, "what trouble Herr Sonnenkamp has taken to destroy all
the owls in the neighborhood; but he cannot do it."

They walked on once more without speaking. Everything seems a sign and
a portent to an excited mood. Hardly breathing the words aloud, the
mother said that Frau Ceres' emotion was incomprehensible. She had
thrown herself on her neck, sobbing and weeping.

"I do not know how to explain it," she continued; "there is some deep
mystery here, and it troubles me."

Eric told them of what had passed among the men, and how Roland, to his
alarm, had spoken of Parker. It was plain that Sonnenkamp wished t