old gentleman said to his wife, "That elegant young man appears to me to be a gambler, who has lost all his means at one of the neighboring baths. Who knows but that he wants to borrow money of the Lady Superior?" She laughed at her husband for being disposed to see now, for the third time during this journey, a criminal or a ruined man in the persons they chanced to meet.

"You may be right," said the old gentleman; "but that's the mischief of these showy, establishments, that one supposes everybody he meets has something to do with them. Besides, just as it happened with our daughter—"

"What happened with me?" asked the girl from the meadow. "Why," continued the father, "how often, when walking behind you at the baths, have I heard people say, 'What beautiful false hair!' no one now thinks that there is anything genuine."

The girl laughed merrily to herself, and then adding a violet to the nosegay on her bosom, called out, "And I believe the stranger is a poet." "Why?" asked the mother. "Because a poet must be handsome like him." The old gentleman laughed, and the mother said, "Child, you are manufacturing a poet out of your own imagination; but, silence! let us go, the portress is beckoning to us."

The convent door opened, and the visitors entered. Behind the second grated door stood two nuns in black garments with hempen cords about their waists. The taller nun, an old lady with an extraordinarily large nose, told them that the Lady Superior was sorry not to be able to receive any one; that it was the evening before her birth-day, and she always remained, on that day, alone until sunset; that there was a further difficulty in admitting strangers to-day, as the children—for so she called the pupils—had prepared a spectacle with which to greet the Superior after sun-down; that everything was in disorder to-day, as a stage had been erected in the great dining-hall; that the Superior, however, had ordered that they should be shown over the convent.

The two nuns led the way through the main passage. Their step was hard and noisy, for they wore wooden shoes fastened to the feet by leather straps over the stockings. The smaller and prettier nun, with her delicate features pinched up in the close-fitting cap, had kept herself timidly in the background, allowing the other to do the talking. But now she addressed the girl in the blue muslin dress, speaking in French. The mother gave a nod of satisfaction to the father, as much as to say, "There, now; you see it was worth while to let the child learn something; that was my doing, and you only reluctantly consented." The father could not refrain from informing the nun with the big nose that his daughter, Lina, had returned, only six months before, from the Convent of the "Sacred Heart" at Aix-la-Chapelle. The stranger also spoke a few words in French to the pretty nun. But now, and as often as he addressed her, she drew herself shyly back, apparently not from timidity, but with a nervous involuntary shrinking into herself.

The breakfast-room, school-room, and music-room, and the large dormitories were shown to the strangers, and they admired the neatness and good order everywhere seen. Especially in the sleeping-rooms everything was 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