June 30.
The young knight we met in the forest has called at our house to-day.
I could scarcely command my voice at first to tell him where our Eva is, because I cannot help partly blaming him for her leaving us at last.
"At Nimptschen!" he said; "then she was noble, after all. None but maidens of noble houses are admitted there."
"Yes," I said, "our mother's family is noble."
"She was too heavenly for this world!" he murmured. "Her face, and something in her words and tones, have haunted me like a holy vision, or a church hymn, ever since I saw her."
I could not feel as indignant with the young knight as Eva did. And he seemed so interested in our father's models, that we could not refuse him permission to come and see us again.
Yes, our Eva was, I suppose, as he says, too religious and too heavenly for this world.
Only, as so many of us have, after all, to live in the world, unless the world is to come to an end altogether, it would be a great blessing if God had made a religion for us poor, secular people, as well as one for the monks and nuns.