t abide the
unfolding of the germ, and neither dare nor can do anything to
precipitate either the good or the ill, either the happiness or the
misery, which is to arise out of it.

Edward had sent an answer by Charlotte's messenger, who had come to him
in his solitude. It was written with kindness and interest, but it was
rather composed and serious than warm and affectionate. He had vanished
almost immediately after, and Charlotte could learn no news about him;
till at last she accidentally found his name in the newspaper, where he
was mentioned with honor among those who had most distinguished
themselves in a late important engagement. She now understood the method
which he had taken; she perceived that he had escaped from great danger;
only she was convinced at the same time that he would seek out greater;
and it was all too clear to her that in every sense he would hardly be
withheld from any extremity.

She had to bear about this perpetual anxiety in her thoughts, and turn
which way she would, there was no light in which she could look at it
that would give her comfort.

Ottilie, never dreaming of anything of this, had taken to the work in
the chapel with the greatest interest, and she had easily obtained
Charlotte's permission to go on with it regularly. So now all went
swiftly forward, and the azure heaven was soon peopled with worthy
inhabitants. By continual practice both Ottilie and the Architect had
gained more freedom with the last figures; they became perceptibly
better. The faces, too, which had been all left to the Architect to
paint, showed by degrees a very singular peculiarly. They began all of
them to resemble Ottilie. The neighborhood of the beautiful girl had
made so strong an impression on the soul of the young man, who had no
variety of faces preconceived in his mind, that by degrees, on the way
from the eye to the hand, nothing was lost, and both worked in exact
harmony together. Enough; one of the last faces succeeded perfectly; so
that it seemed as if Ottilie herself was looking down out of the spaces
of the sky.

They had finished with the arching of the ceiling. The walls they
proposed to leave plain, and only to cover them over with a bright brown
color. The delicate pillars and the quaintly molded ornaments were to be
distinguished from them by a dark shade. But as in such things one thing
ever leads on to another, they determined at least on having festoons of
flowers and fruit, which