"For once, I am present at your devotions."
Again the two in the saloon spoke, and now Eric heard his name mentioned, as the Mother said,—
"Eric reads Goethe's poems aloud very well."
He got up at once, and was ready to do it.
Bella, Aunt Claudine, and Herr Sonnenkamp were called in, and Eric read aloud, but to-day not so well as usual, for there were many things which might be taken as the embodiment of emotions in his own heart and in that of Bella.
They sat down to dinner in an elevated frame of mind, as after a religious service.
Clodwig could not speak often enough of the good-fortune, which had led the son of one of the guests to become the life-guide of the son of another.
He plunged deeply into the consideration that one Spirit, who presided over all, had prepared and fitted the one to impart the highest he possessed to the other.
He said very naturally, that Manna ought to leave the convent, as no one could aid her to complete her education more worthily than the Mother.
Sonnenkamp and the Mother looked at each other in amazement, for another was expressing their own silent convictions.