"You are too: clever for me," said Manna, banteringly.
"I don't like to hear you say so, for those are only empty words. No man is too clever for another, if each one says to himself: 'I have something in my own way too. You should not make use of such expressions. My respect for you rests upon the very fact that I never before heard from you an empty phrase. What you say is not always logically true, but it is true for you."
"I thank you." Said Manna quickly, resting the tips of her fingers upon his hand; and, as if recollecting herself, she added hastily once more:—
"I thank you."
"I know not why it is; I have been delivered from an oppressive melancholy, and I feel as if it was a whole year since I was so sad. We have the good fortune to understand each other in the highest, thoughts, and thought in the highest strain admits no measurement of time."
"Ah yes," rejoined Manna, "in the very midst of all my sorrows the thought has been present to me all day: 'Something is coming that will give you joy.' Now I know what it was. You were the friend and instructor of Roland; take me instead of him; be my friend and instructor. Will you?"
She stretched out her hand to him, and both gazed at each other with a look of joy.
"Ah, there sits your mother," cried Manna all at once; with a swift step she hastened to the Professorin, and kissed her passionately.
The Professorin was astonished to see her. Is this the same maiden at whose bedside she had sat the evening before, whose chilled hands she had warmed, to whom she had spoken the words of encouragement? Youth is an everlasting riddle.
Manna held her hand to her eyes for some time, and as she opened them once more, she said:—