eeling by the sofa, she cried:--

"Roland, I have a great secret to tell you; Eric and I----"

"What?" exclaimed Roland, sitting upright.

"Eric and I are betrothed."

"You? you two?"

He sprang up, pressed her in his arms, exclaiming again:--

"You? you two?"

"Yes, Roland; and he has known everything for a long time."

"He has known everything? And he has not rejected you with
disdain?--and he has instructed me so faithfully?--Oh!"

Roland and Manna held each other in a long embrace. There was a knock
at the door, and they separated, looking at each other in dismay. They
knew it was their father's knock, but neither of them said so. There
was another rap, and they still were silent. Retreating footsteps were
heard, and they knew their father's step. Both knew what it meant not
to open when their father knocked, but each refrained from speaking of
it.

Roland's thoughts must have gone from one person to the other, for he
now said:--

"Herr von Pranken has advised me to enter the Papal army. O, if I only
knew a battle-field where human brotherhood was to be fought for! O, if
I knew where that was, how gladly would I die on it! But that cannot be
won upon the field of battle. Oh, sister! I don't know what I'm
thinking, what I'm saying. Hiawatha fasted, and we must fast too."

"Let us go home!" said Manna, finally.

"Home! home! What is home to us? What can be our home?"

Roland, however, rose up and went hand in hand with Manna through the
meadow to the villa.

The sun shone bright, the hay exhaled so sweet a fragrance, the vessels
were rushing up and down the stream, and just then a merry procession
was moving towards them on the road; it was a so-called harvest
mummery. On a cask sat the second son of the Huntsman crowned as
Bacchus with vine-leaves; around him stood maidens clad in white, with
dishevelled hair; they were swinging jugs, shouting and rejoicing. On
the horses rode shapes disguised with moss.

Everybody was shouting and screaming amidst the loud report of
fire-arms.

Brother and sister stood and gazed after the merry train, which
disappeared behind the trees, and each knew the other's thoughts. Yes,
all others can be merry, but we! They went on farther, and at last
Roland said:--

"I know not how it is with me, I feel as if I were not really
experiencing all this; I am only dreaming of it, and looking at it like
a departed spirit. Everything is so distant, so inacessible, so dim, s