l was dark and desolate; but here, among you all, it is already
beginning to feel lighter, and here, if anywhere, I shall recover what I
lost in my other home.--Happy child! Could you not fancy, as she stands
there in the evening light, that the pure devotion which fills her soul,
radiated from her? If I were not afraid of disturbing her, and if I were
worthy, how gladly would I join my prayers to hers!"

"You have a part in them as it is," replied the old man with a smile.
"At this moment St. Cecilia appears to her under the guise of your
features. We will ask her--you will see."

"No, leave her alone!" entreated Paula with a blush, and she led Rufinus
away to the other end of the garden.

They soon reached a spot where a high hedge of thorny shrubs parted the
old man's plot from that of Susannah. Rufinus here pricked up his ears
and then angrily exclaimed:

"As sure as I long to be quit of this lumber, they are cutting my hedge
again! Only last evening I caught one of the slaves just as he was going
to work on the branches; but how could I get at the black rascal through
the thorns? It was to make a peep-hole for curious eyes, or for spies,
for the Patriarch knows how to make use of a petticoat; but I will
be even with them! Do you go on, pray, as if you had seen and heard
nothing; I will fetch my whip."

The old man hurried away, and Paula was about to obey him; but scarcely
had he disappeared when she heard herself called in a shrill girl's
voice through a gap in the hedge, and looking round, she spied a pretty
face between the boughs which had yesterday been forced asunder by a
man's hands--like a picture wreathed with greenery.

Even in the twilight she recognized it at once, and when Katharina
put her curly head forward, and said in a beseeching tone: "May I get
through, and will you listen to me?" she gladly signified her consent.

The water-wagtail, heedless of Paula's hand held out to help her,
slipped through the gap so nimbly that it was evident that she had not
long ceased surmounting such obstacles in her games with Mary. As swift
as the wind she came down on her feet, holding out her arms to rush at
Paula; but she suddenly let them fall in visible hesitancy, and drew
back a step. Paula, however, saw her embarrassment; she drew the girl to
her, kissed her forehead, and gaily exclaimed:

"Trespassing! And why could you not come in by the gate? Here comes my
host with his hippopotamus thong.--Stop, s