ing
delighted with the whole family, especially with Aunt Claudine. With a
knowing look at Pranken, Fraeulein Perini slyly remarked that the Aunt
was kept as a reserve to be brought to bear upon Manna, but she hoped
that Pranken and herself would be able to hold the field.

At last Manna herself came upon the terrace, and again offered her left
hand to Pranken, as in the right she held her prayer-book. She thanked
him cordially for his congratulations that this beautiful spring
morning found no blossom wanting on the family tree, and, as he
undertook to read what was in her mind, and interpret her feelings at
finding herself once more under her father's roof, she said quietly:--

"It is a tent which is spread and folded again."

With great tact Pranken seized upon the expression; he was sufficiently
familiar with the ecclesiastical manner of speaking, to be able to
construct the whole contingent of meditation and reflection, from which
this single remark had been thrown like a solitary soldier on a
reconnoissance. He talked with no little eloquence of our pilgrimage
through the desert of life, until we reached the promised land, adding
that the old man in us must die, for only the new man was worthy to
possess the land of promise.

There was a certain conversational fluency in Pranken's manner of
speaking which at first repelled Manna, but she seemed pleased, upon
the whole, to find this carefully trained, versatile man at home in
this sphere of thought. The fact of his belonging to the church, and
therefore living among the same ideas with herself, seemed to form a
bond of attraction between them. When at length he drew out of his
pocket the Thomas a Kempis she had given him, and told her that to that
he owed whatever of good was in him, she cast down her eyes, and,
laying her hand upon the book, said hurriedly, as she heard the voices
of the Professorin and the Major approaching: "Pray put the book back,
away."

Pranken obeyed, and while his eyes were fixed upon Manna, kept his hand
pressed on the book, which lay against his heart. This common secret
established a degree of intimacy at once between himself and the pure,
reserved girl.

The Major examined Manna as he would have done a recruit, making her
turn round and round, and walk this way and that, that he might judge
of her way of moving, all which evolutions Manna went through with
great good humor.

"Yes, yes," he said at length, extending the forefing