, and prayed to God that he would not
suffer her to fall into sin and ruin. But she had not conquered. She
scorned and hated the vision, but it would not leave her. Now she
begged that some penance might be imposed upon her, that she might be
allowed to fast for three days.

The superior gently consoled her, saying that she must not blame
herself so bitterly, because the self-reproach increased the excitement
of fancy and feeling. At the season when the elders were in bloom and
the nightingales sang, a maiden of seventeen was apt to be visited by
dreams; Manna must not weep over these dreams, but just scare them away
and mock at them; they were only to be driven off by ridicule.

Manna kissed the hands of the superior.

It became dark. The sparrows were silent, the noisy children returned
to the house, and only the nightingale sang continually in the
shrubbery. Manna turned back to the convent, the superior leading her
by the hand. She went to the large dormitory, and sprinkled herself
with holy water. She continued praying silently long after she had gone
to bed, and fell asleep, with her hands folded.

The river swept rustling along the valley, and swept rustling by the
villa where Roland slept with contemptuously curled lip; it rushed past
the streets of the little town, where Eric was speculating upon this
and that in the doctor's house; it rushed by the inn where Pranken,
leaning against the window, stared over at the convent.

The moon shone on the river, and the nightingales sang on the shore,
and in the houses thousands of people slept, forgetting joy and sorrow,
until the day again dawned.

CHAPTER II.

A GREEN TWIG.

Os the west side of the convent, under the lofty, wide-spreading,
thickly-leaved chestnut-trees, beeches, and lindens, and far in among
the firs with their fresh shoots, stationary tables and benches were
arranged. Girls in blue dresses were sitting here, reading, writing, or
busy with their hand-work. Sometimes there was a low humming, but not
louder than the humming of the bees in the blossoming chestnut-trees;
sometimes a moving this way and that, a change in one's position, but
not more than the fluttering of a bird in the trees overhead.

Manna sat at the table beneath a large fir-tree, and at a little
distance from her, on a low seat under a lofty beech on whose trunk
many names were carved, and on which was suspend