des his face,
while, at the command of Artemis, one of the nymphs leads in the stag
that is to be sacrificed in Iphigenia's place.

"How many things you have learned," smiled Manna.

"And Eric told me," continued Roland, "that the sacrifice of Iphigenia
was just like that of Isaac, and all the other sacrifices we read
about."

Manna's face darkened; that was the foundation of a fatal heresy.

"Stop, now I have it," cried Roland. "Ah, that is good! There are still
oracles in the world. Orestes had to fetch his sister from the temple
of Tauris, where she was priestess. That is it! You divined it! That
will delight Eric; ah! how it will delight him! But stay! When
Iphigenia and her brother were on board ship I am sure he must have
played off all sorts of silly tricks to amuse her, and I am sure she
laughed. Have you quite forgotten how to laugh? You used to laugh so
merrily, just like a wood-pigeon. Do laugh just once."

He laughed with his whole heart, but Manna remained unmoved, and,
during the way, sat buried in her own thoughts. Only once, when the
boat came to a sudden stop in the middle of the stream, she asked:--

"What is that?"

"That is the very question I asked Eric when we were going up the river
together, and he showed me up there a heavily-laden freight vessel,
which would be overturned and sunk by the commotion of the water, if
our steamer did not moderate its speed. Oh, there is nothing he does
not know, and then he said: Remember. Roland, that we should do the
same thing in life; we must not rush on our own way, but must think of
the heavily-laden voyagers on the stream of life with us, and take care
that the waves we raise do not overwhelm them."

Manna stared at her brother. She could trace the influence of a man who
used the actual as a symbol of the ideal, and she became herself, in a
measure, conscious of that power which in every outward aspect of life
seeks and finds the underlying thought. She shook her head, and opening
her breviary, began diligently to read it.

"See the sunlight on the glass cupola," cried Roland, as it grew late
in the afternoon. "That is home. Perhaps they have guessed at home that
you are coming back with me."

"Home, home," breathed Manna softly to herself; the word sounded
strange to her on her own lips, as it had done from Roland's. She
closed her eyes, as if dazzled by the reflection on the glass cupola.

CHAPTER XIII.