The next day, Saturday, the dean as usual was up before seven, went his morning round among the labourers, and then going further, he returned in daylight. As he was going past the house to the farm yard, he saw an open exercise book, or something of the sort, which must have been thrown out of Petra's window the evening before, and not found, because it was the colour of the snow. He took up the book, and carried it in with him to his study; in opening the leaves to dry them, he saw it was an old French exercise book, in which verses were now written. He never thought of reading the verses, but he caught sight of the word, "Actress," written all over,--even in the verses themselves ... He sat down to examine it.
After repeated erasures and corrections, he came at last to the following rhyme, which though not copied, could still be read:
"Come listen my love, and hear me say,
The longing that fills me from day to day,
An actress I'll be, and I'll picture true,
To the world a woman from every view,--
How she suffers, and how she laughs,
How she prays, and loves, and chaffs,
How she is when she is sinful,
How she is when she is peaceful,
Oh God, I pray Thee, help Thou me,
To be the one that I aim to be!"
And a little below the following:
"May not I be Thy servant, Lord?
Wilt Thou not Thy help afford?"
Under this, was a verse, in imitation no doubt, of a poem they had read a few months before:
"Oh, a river nymph to be,
Nymph to be,