arranged as prettily and neatly, as if not real human beings, much less careless children, inhabited them, but as if everything had been made ready for fairy visitants. In one little bed only was there any disturbance. Lina drew back the curtain, and a child with great brown eyes looked up. The young man had also come to the bedside. "What is the matter with the child?" asked Lina. "Only homesickness." "Only homesickness," said the stranger in a low tone to himself, while the lady asked, "How do you cure homesickness?" "The housekeeper has a sure method; a child complaining of homesickness is put on the sick-list, and must stay in bed; when she is allowed to get up, the homesickness is gone, and she feels at home." "Go away, all of you! go away! I want Manna, I want Manna," moaned the child. "She will come soon," said the nun, soothingly, adding in explanation, "No one but an American girl can pacify the child." "That must be our Manna," said Lina to her mother. The twilight was gathering, and through the galleries, in the golden evening light, strange forms rustled in long green, blue, and red garments, and then vanished within the cells.
The visitors went into the dining-room, at the farther end of which there was the representation of a forest scene with a hermitage; and there lay a doe bound with a red cord. The young creature fixed its great eyes on the strangers, and tugging at its cord, tried to get away.
The French nun said that the children, aided by one of the sisters who had a natural talent that way, had themselves arranged the decorations. Large choirs had been practicing, and one of the pupils, a very remarkable child, had composed the piece which represented a scene from the life of the Superior's patron saint.
The German nun regretted that no stranger could be present. A copy of the song to be introduced in the play was lying upon a chair. The lady, taking it up, read it and handed it over to the young man, who ran through the verses. "It's astonishing that a child should have composed them," said the lady. The young stranger felt obliged to make some reply, and observed in a somewhat careless tone, "Our German language, especially when used in rhyming, is an instrument that can easily be drummed upon, and thrummed upon, by any child."
"I told you so; he is a poet," said the triumphant look of the girl to her parents.
As they were leaving the dining-hall, now turned into a temporary theatre, Lina remarked to the pretty Frenchwoman how sorry she was not to be able to see her young friend, Hermanna Sonnenkamp; she herself was obliged to return that very evening with her parents, as they had been invited to attend, to-morrow afternoon, a reception at the Countess von Wolfsgarten's.
The girl said this with a proud emphasis, as if assured that every one must know what was the full significance of a reception at Count von Wolfsgarten's. The Frenchwoman must have noticed it, for she replied, "Here, on the contrary, we do not know each other by the names applied to us in the world outside; we here know only our convent names."
"May I know yours?" "Certainly; I am called sister Seraphia." The girl seemed now on more intimate terms with the French sister, since she could call her "sister Seraphia;" and she rejoiced at the thought of being able to tell at home, in her own little town, about the nun of high rank, at least a princess, whose acquaintance she had made. They walked back through the long gallery, and as they went down the steps, there came up a snow-white form with great wings on its shoulders, and a glittering diadem on its head, from which long black ringlets streamed down over bosom and neck. Deep, black eyes, with long lashes and thick brows, gleamed out of the pale countenance. "Manna!" cried Lina, and "Manna!" echoed the vaulted ceiling. The winged apparition grasped the hand of the speaker, and leading her aside down the stairs said, "Is it you, dear Lina? Ah, I have only been with a poor child pining with homesickness; to-day I cannot speak a word with any other living soul."
"O, how wonderful you look! how splendid! To the child you must be a real live angel! And how glad they will all be at home, when I tell them."
"Not a word about it. Excuse me to your parents for flitting by them, and – who, who is the young man here with you?"
The stranger seemed aware that they were talking about him, and looked from below up to the wonderful vision. He shaded his eyes with his hand, to take a better look, but he could see none of the features, nothing but the mysterious shape and the two gleaming eyes.
"We don't know who he is; he joined us first in the boat; but," she added, smiling at her own suggestion, "you can find out, for he sent a greeting from his mother to the Superior; ask her by and by. Don't you think him handsome?"
"O Lina! how you talk! May the Holy St. Genevieve intercede with the dear God to pardon you for saying that, and me" – covering her face with her hands – "for hearing it. Farewell, Lina, greet every one for me."
As the winged apparition swept along the corridor, she was unable to hear Lina calling out that she would, to-morrow, tell them at the Countess Wolfsgarten's all about her. The vision vanished. They left the convent, and at the door the old gentleman said to the young man, "It is a good thing for girls to be educated in a convent on an island, away from the rest of the world." "Girls at the convent, and boys at the barracks! fine world that!" answered the young man, in a sharp tone.
Without a word in reply, the old gentleman, turning away, drew off a few paces with the ladies as if he wished to have no further intercourse with a stranger of such revolutionary sentiments. The stranger hastened to the boat, and was speedily set across. The stream was like pure, molten gold, and the stranger dipping his fingers into it bathed his forehead and eyes. He sprang lightly ashore, and looking over to the island-convent, saw the man, with wife and daughter, just going down to the boat; he waved a distant farewell with his hat, and with a rapid step went up the hill behind the ruins of the castle, overlooking the convent. He continued sitting there for a long time, gazing fixedly at the convent on the island. He heard songs from maiden voices, saw the long row of windows brightly lighted up, and at last, looking up to the stars, he exclaimed, "O mother!" What did that mean? Perhaps his mother had said to him, that at some time or other a wonderful experience would come over him. The nightingale in the thicket sang on unceasingly, and the young man listened to the song, but would gladly have silenced it in order that he might hear more plainly the singing of the children in the convent, who with magic power had conjured up a dream of heaven into their actual life, and for one hour become choirs of singing angels. "Alone in the spring night, amidst the Castle-ruins with beating heart! Can it be I?" said the young man to himself.
He descended the hill, and as he reached the inn, met the man with the two women just ready to start for the rail-road station. He would have liked to ask the girl who that wonderful apparition was, but he restrained himself. What would be the use? Better that thou knowest her not; then the charm of the vision is pure and undisturbed. He went into the inn; he sat there and read the bill of fare without knowing what he was reading, and what he should select. He stared at the card until the waiter came and asked for it, in order to give it to another guest. He ordered what happened to meet his eye. "What wine would you like? We have 'Drachenblut' of a choice vintage." "Bring some Drachenblut."
He ate and drank without knowing what; he only knew that he must eat and drink something; absently he took up a newspaper lying upon the table. What are convents? what are ruined castles? what is the apparition of a girl with wings? Here is the world, the real, the stirring, the actual world of to-day. You come into an inn, weary after a wide survey from a mountain top, and involuntarily you lay hold of a newspaper, – why is this? It may be that the eye and the mind, tired out by the manifestations of unmoving nature, become refreshed by viewing what is perpetually changing in the world; you are alone, you need to hear some word spoken by one to many, and the newspaper tells you about the world which has kept on its way while you were dreaming, while you were losing yourself in the boundless prospect, and coming to yourself again.
Yes, it is so now! How it was in other times, when one could live on in undisturbed dreaminess, we can hardly imagine. At all times – whether in the pressure of heavy affliction, when our own life has become a burden, and the world indifferent, or in exalted feeling, when we are transported, as it were, out of all actual existence – the newspaper comes, and demands our attention, and calls to us as if we were to cöoperate everywhere in the various relations of the world.
What has America to do with the young man? and yet he has just read an account of matters there; the choice of a new President of the Republic was exciting all minds in the New World,