hat you know
perfectly well; but as you describe Mr. M., and with the feelings, or
more properly speaking, the want of feeling you have for him, I can
never believe that you will be happy with him, and I cannot therefore
advise this marriage. See, here are some almonds in the shell, my dear
girl! We have not forgotten so soon your love for them--I set the basket
before you."

"And the Countess Solenstrale," said the lively Gabriele, archly, "has
herself spoken for her nephew, and invited you to her house. Very polite
and handsome of her! And you, Petrea, no longer covet this exaltation?"

"Ah, no, Gabriele!" answered Petrea, "this childish desire is long past;
it is another kind of exaltation than this, that I pine for."

"And this is called?" asked Gabriele, with a light in her lovely eyes,
which showed her that she very well knew that, which however she had not
pronounced in words.

"I do not know what I should call it; but there lives and moves here a
longing difficult to describe," said Petrea, laying her hand upon her
breast, and with eyes full of tears; "oh, if I could only rise upwards
to light--to a higher, freer life!"

"You do not wish to die!" said Gabriele, warmly; "not that I now fear
death. Since Henrik has trod this path, I feel so entirely different to
what I used to do. Heaven is come quite near to the grave. To die is to
me to go to him, and to his home. But I am yet so happy to be living
here with my family, and you, my Petrea, must feel so too. Ah! life on
earth, with those that we love, may indeed be so beautiful!"

"So I think, and so I feel, Gabriele," replied Petrea, "and more so than
ever when I am at home, and with my own family. On that account I will
gladly live on the earth, at least till I am more perfect. But I must
have a sense of this life having in it a certain activity, by which I
may arrive at the consciousness of that which lives within me--there
moves in me a fettered spirit, which longs after freedom!"

"Extraordinary!" said Gabriele, half displeased, "how unlike people are
one to another. I, for my part, feel, not the least desire for activity.
I, unworthy mortal, would much rather do nothing." And so saying she
leaned her pretty head with half-shut eyes against her mother, who
looked on her with an expression that seemed to say, "live only; that is
enough for thee!"

Petrea continued: "When I have read or heard of people who have lived
and laboured for some great object,