house; in this way many good results could be
secured. The girl, who was serious and earnest, would take again her
proper place, and the immeasurable wealth of the father would have a
secure and immovable basis if it were intrusted to the care of the
daughter of the house.

The Mother's eyes gleamed as she looked, at Fraeulein Milch; yonder the
Doctor's wife, and here the housekeeper, are appealing to her to bring
Manna out of the convent, and initiate her into an active life of
common usefulness.

She made, very cautiously, further inquiries of the charitable and
sensible housekeeper concerning the people in the neighborhood, but
Fraeulein Milch evaded them. She affirmed that she did not have the
right view of people; she saw them on Sundays and holidays, when they
were in a merry mood, singing, and going up and down the mountain with
wreaths on their heads; but whoever was not in the very midst of this
hilarious movement, whoever observed it from the window, or from behind
the garden hedge, could form no suitable estimate of it; generally the
whole seems one undistinguishable jumble, just as when one stops his
ears and looks at people dancing, but hears nothing of the music.

The Mother led the talk back to Manna, and, forgetting her usual marked
reserve, Fraeulein Milch declared that Manna must have received some
severe shock, as it was not natural for any one to go from the extreme
of overbearing pride to the extreme of humility.

"I will relate to you one little incident of Manna, and you will know
what she is. A stinging fly, a Rhine-gnat, as it is called, alighted on
her hand, and sucked her blood; she quietly let it suck, and then said:
'The ugly fly! I have let it drink my blood without disturbing it, and
just for that it has stung me.' Now can't you know what the child is
from this little trait, supposing that they have not spoiled her in the
convent? I can speak of the child with so much the more freedom, as she
has a dislike to me, of which Fraeulein Perini was the cause."

Fraeulein Milch now launched out into a passionate invective against
Pranken.

She acknowledged that her aversion to him arose from his making the
Major the target of his wit, more than was attributable to youthful
arrogance; he was both witty and supercilious. And it was so much the
more remarkable that now he should pretend to be pious, and that too,
before he had married Manna; there must be some deep-laid game here,
not easily