've so much--so much, and I should
like most dearly to give some of it to you. But what do we talk so much
for? Come, catch me! Do you remember our old play: 'Everything flies
that has wings'? Come, catch me!"

Lina ran off with fluttering garments, and when she stopped saw that
Manna had not followed her. She waited until she came up, and the two
maidens walked in silence to the villa.

CHAPTER IV.

"THROUGH THE NEW DOOR."

Lina staid with Manna, so that she was unable to shake off her
school-friend. When they went together to church, if Manna said, going
and returning, that she would rather not talk in the morning, then Lina
insisted that Manna need not say anything, she would do all the talking
herself. She chatted about everything that came into her mind, things
past and things to come.

As soon as she woke up she ran through the gamut, then ran trilling
through the house, and almost every hour of the day, when there was no
caller and they were within doors, she sat at the piano in the music
saloon, singing and playing incessantly, mixing up serious and
melancholy, classic and modern music, no matter what, so that it made
sound enough. She would follow up one of Pergolese's mournful dirges
with a merry Tyrolese carol.

The whole house was entirely changed by Lina's presence, and at the
table there was a great deal of laughter. In cherry time the hot-houses
at Villa Eden already supplied early apples; and Lina had the habit of
never peeling an apple, but biting into it whole, congratulating
herself that she could do it without being reprimanded by her mother.
She paid no regard to Sonnenkamp's reproving look; she was an
independent girl, doing recklessly whatever she fancied, and so
accustomed to being scolded, that she had become hardened to it.

Lina ate heartily, like a good healthy peasant girl, while Manna ate as
if it were a matter of compulsion. Lina took pleasure in eating, and
was hungry all the time. She could always take something, she said of
herself, and if anything at the table had a particularly good relish,
she would say:--

"Aren't you glad, Manna, that you've got rid of that convent food. Ah,
my first meal at home was a new experience to me, and here you have
very nice things."

She also liked a glass of wine, and was rallied on that account. She
begged Eric to defend her, and he replied:--

"That's easily done. It's a romant