ble to accommodate him, as she was engage
with her mother; but as soon as she was free she would consider
the matter, and Walter would probably be favored. She looked at him
sweetly--and then the game called her to another part of the yard.

Love is the instinct for unity--and the instinct for multiplicity. As
everywhere, nature is simple here in principle, but manifold in
application. The love of a thief means: Come, we will go steal
together. The servant of the Word unites with his loved one in prayer
and psalm, etc., every animal after his kind.

Or is this instinct to share, to be together, to be united at the
same the instinct for the good?

In Walter's case it was, even though he himself did not know it. Had
he not, in the name of Cecilia, liberated a bird that fluttered about
its narrow cage in distress? Of course Cecilia had laughed and asked
Walter if he was crazy. She did not know that there was any connection
between his sympathy for the poor little bird and the beating of his
heart when he scratched her name on the frozen window-pane in the
back room. Perhaps she would have understood if she had loved Walter;
but that was impossible, because he still wore his jacket stuffed in
his trousers.

At all events, it was not possible for him to think of anything bad
when he called "Omicron." He had now forgotten Cecilia, and would
have been greatly surprised if she had appeared in answer to his
call. Little Emma would have come nearer meeting his requirements.

Walter felt that he must know just how the young man was proceeding
with Betty in the bower. He soon found an excuse to separate himself
from his companions; and then he heard all sorts of things that did
not make him much wiser.

"Yes, I said so too. In May----"

"Certainly, on account of the top story----"

"It's annoying! And what does your mother say?"

"Hm--she says we must wait another year, that it isn't respectable
to get married in such a hurry--it's just as if----"

"Four years----"

"Yes, four years. Louw and Anna have been engaged for seven."

Walter was proud that he knew exactly what it all meant. To rent
an upper story together, preferably in May!--that was the way he
understood it.

"And do you get that press for the linen?"

"No, mother wants to keep it. But if we will only wait a year she
will give us another one--a small one."

"The big one would have been nicer."

"I think so too, but she says young people don't need a