y. And
yet Manna returned, again and again, to the Professorin, as is if she
were fleeing from something, and could find concealment only there.

Frau Dournay's uniform serenity of soul, her perpetual willingness to
devote herself to the service of others, had a magnetic attraction for
her, and before she was aware of it, she formed more intimate
relations, and became more confidential with the Professorin than she
had ever believed possible.

The struggle and the vacillation of the girl's young heart were
revealed first of all to the Professorin. As they were sitting once in
the garden, having fortunately declined to go with Lina, Roland, and
Eric, on an excursion upon the Rhine, Manna said, looking timidly
around,--

"Why should it be a sin to take delight in nature? Is not joy itself a
sort of devotion?"

The Professorin making no reply. Manna said with pressing
earnestness:--

"Do speak, I entreat you."

"A writer," replied she, "whom you do not probably revere as we do, has
said: God loves better to see a heart filled with joy than with
sorrow."

"What's the man's name?"

"Gotthold Lessing."

Manna requested to have the passage pointed out. The Professorin
brought the book, and from that time there was a free interchange of
thought between them. The Professorin continued very cautious in her
remarks, and repeated that she should look upon it as a sacrilege to
deprive a believing heart of its religious convictions.

Manna declared that she was strong enough to enter into the thoughts of
the children of the world, as they are termed, without getting lost
herself.

The Professorin repeatedly warned and advised her, but she insisted
that she had returned to the world in order to perceive what it had to
proffer to her, and then to renounce all freely. She expressed a firm
determination not to become Pranken's wife, in fact, not to be married
at all. She came very near disclosing to the Professorin, that she
wanted to devote herself as an expiatory sacrifice, not from
compulsion, but, through heavenly grace, freely renouncing all the
delights of the world.

"To you," said Manna, with tearful eyes, "I could tell all."

It would have required only a single word, one encouraging appeal, and
Manna would have told everything to the Mother. But she earnestly
entreated not to be made the repository of any secret; not because she
could not keep it faithfully, but it would be a burden to her, and she
should ne