alk in the open air," as Knopf
had called it, came into his mind.

He went to the church, and on the way the good Knopf's words haunted
him:--"Our life is not simply a walk in the open air."

He entered the church just as the organ pealed out. Knopf is right, he
continued to himself; there are the seats, the candlesticks, the
kneeling-stools, and they are waiting peacefully and quietly for the
comers. Who knows what his neighbor cherishes in his heart? But it is a
meeting-place where we find each other and we find ourselves.

Eric sat down quietly behind a pillar.

As he looked up, he saw Manna kneeling not far from the altar.

So will she soon kneel when she is married to Pranken.

Terrified, as if some one had seized him from behind, Eric looked
round; there was no one there. He would have left the church, but the
quiet hour and the quiet service did him good. What further he thought
of, he knew not. The organ sounded, Manna passed him by, he heard the
rustle of her dress, he did not stir. The lights on the altar were
extinguished, he left the church.

"Ah, you too were in the church?" was the question put to him in a
woman's voice.

He looked up astonished; Fraeulein Milch stood before him. He greeted
her pleasantly, and said he was not aware that she also was a Catholic.

"I am not one, but there are times when I cannot pray alone, I must go
into another house, into one that has been erected to the Most High;
then must I be with my fellow-creatures, who, like me, seek consolation
and peace in the Eternal, even if they do call upon him in another way
than mine. I do not pray as the others do, but I pray with them."

She looked confidingly into his countenance, as if she meant to say,
"Thou canst not be alone either." As Eric did not make any answer, she
asked after his mother, and begged him to say to her, that she had not
been to visit her because she was afraid of disturbing her; but that
she herself would always be found at home.

"And you, Captain, must come and see us whenever you feel like it. We
have not a great deal to offer, but there is one thing that can always
be had at our house, and that is quiet. And you need not even bid
good-day when you come, but you can make yourself at home with us,
whenever you happen to feel the need."

She now asked how Eric felt since Roland had left him, and she was the
first to whom Eric expressed his great longing for the youth.

"Roland has become more to me