, lifting and opening, gold and green,
clearer and clearer. There were bright jewelled patches in amongst the
trees; the boles of the trees shone out sharp grey and silver and flaked
with sharp green leaves away and away until they melted into a mist
of leafage. Singing sounded suddenly away in the wood; a sudden strong
shouting of men's voices singing together like one voice in four parts,
four shouts in one sound.

"O _Sonn_enschein! O _Sonn_enschein!"

Between the two exclamatory shouts, the echo rang through the woods and
the listening girls heard the sharp drip, drip and murmur of the
little stream near by, then the voices swung on into the song, strongly
interwoven, swelling and lifting; dropping to a soft even staccato and
swelling strongly out again.

"Wie scheinst du mir in's Herz hinein Weck'st drinnen lauter Liebeslust,
Dass mir so enge wird die Brust O _Sonn_enschein! O _Sonn_---enschein!"

When the voices ceased there was a faint distant sound of crackling
twigs and the echo of talking and laughter.

"Ach Studenten!"

"Irgend ein Mannergesangverein."

"I think we ought to get back, Gertrude. Fraulein _said_ only an hour
altogether and it's church tonight."

"We'll get back, Millenium mine--never fear."

As they began to retrace their steps Clara softly sang the last line of
the song, the highest note ringing, faint and clear, away into the wood.

"Ho-lah!" A mighty answering shout rang through the wood. It was like a
word of command.

"Oh, come along home; Clara, what are you dreaming of?"

"Taisez-vous, taisez-vous, Clarah! C'est honteux mon Dieu!"

CHAPTER IX

1

The next afternoon they all drove in a high wide brake with an awning,
five miles out into the country to have tea at a forest-inn. The inn
appeared at last standing back from the wide roadway along which
they had come, creamy-white and grey-roofed, long and low and with
overhanging eaves, close against the forest. They pulled up and Pastor
Lahmann dropped the steps and got out. Miriam who was sitting next to
the door felt that the long sitting in two rows confronted in the hard
afternoon light, bumped and shaken and teased with the crunchings and
slitherings of the wheels the grinding and squeaking of the brake, had
made them all enemies. She had sat tense and averted, seeing the general
greenery, feeling that the cool flowing air might be great happiness,
conscious of each form and each voice, of the insincerit