"Now, I have a request to make," she continued in an animated tone; "since I have had the good fortune to be your parents' guest, I have insisted that the daily course of your brother's studies should not be in the least interfered with, and now let me beg you, my dear young lady, to go on with your usual occupations. I shall have the pleasure of dining with you, and after dinner, I shall be very glad if you will spare me a quarter of an hour."
"If you have any private message for Manna," said the Superior, "I will leave you together."
"I have not any private message."
Manna gave the Professorin her hand, and left the room. She did not know what to make of it all; why had she been summoned when there was so little to be said to her? It offended her a little to be so pushed about by a stranger—for the lady was a stranger. But as she walked through the long passage, she still saw before her the sincere and gentle countenance of the stranger, smiling at her as if saying, You are a strange child!
Manna returned thoughtfully to her cell; she looked out of the window and saw Pranken just entering a boat with his horse, and he was soon on the opposite shore.
"Ah, Herr von Pranken!" cried a loud voice, and the echo repeated the sound.
What voice was that?
Pranken hurried up the bank and vanished behind the willows.
Manna longed for the time when the world would be shut out from her, and no more unrest could come over her, for now she was deeply disturbed. There was Pranken; here, the tutor's mother—what did it all mean? She took her book of devotions, but could not succeed in drawing her thoughts from the subjects which occupied them.
In the mean time, the Professorin was listening to the Superior's account of Manna's strange nature, which seemed really to hold two natures within it, one, humble and submissive, almost without a will of its own; the other, struggling, defiant, and self-willed. She had a true, earnest character, too serious, perhaps, for a girl of seventeen; she was often unable to, hold her feelings under control, but who could always do that at her age? A weight lay on her spirits which was uncontrollable; it plainly had its source in the child's keen sense of the discord between her parents and its influence upon herself. The Superior asked Frau Dournay to tell her more of the characteristic peculiarities of the parents, but she evaded the subject.