Calmly, clearly, and with wonderful insight. Manna apprehended everything; but in the very midst of the recital, she suddenly threw herself upon Eric's breast, and sobbed forth:—
"Oh! why must I have this knowledge so young, so early; why must I experience and overcome all this?"
After Eric had calmed and soothed her, she went away.
An eye had watched, an eye had seen. But they knew not that an eye had watched and an eye had seen.
In an eye had the morning, on awakening, Manna cried, "I am beloved! his beloved! Is he awake yet, I wonder?"
She opened the window. A young starling, that was now, even in the autumn, building its nest, found the thin hempen cord on the tree before Manna's window, snapped it up in its bill, and flew away to weave it into the nest. Eric was below in the garden, and Manna called to him:—
"I'll be down immediately." And in the early dawn they embraced and kissed each other, and spoke words of encouragement to one another, needed for what must be borne to-day, for to-day her father and Pranken were expected to return.
They went towards the green cottage hand in hand, sat down where they had sat with the Mother on the previous day, and waited for her waking. In the midst of all the joy and all the suffering of a secret love, encompassed by perils, they wanted to learn what had taken glace at the capital. They could not anticipate what had really occurred.
Eric let Manna return alone. He told her that he had been at the Major's the evening before, and he, wanted to go again, in order to request him and Fräulein Milch to keep the matter a profound secret.
As Eric was going along the road, a carriage came up; his name was called, and Bella got put.