And without saying another word we retired to rest. In the morning when I woke Eva was sitting beside me with a lamp on the table, and the large Latin Bible open before her. I watched her face for some time. It looked so pure, and good, and happy, with that expression on it which always helped me to understand the meaning of the words, "child of God," "little children," as Dr. Melancthon says our Lord called his disciples just before he left them. There was so much of the unclouded trustfulness of the "child" in it, and yet so much of the peace and depth which are of God.
After I had been looking at her a while she closed the Bible and began to alter a dress of mine which she had promised to prepare for Christmas. As she was sewing, she hummed softly, as she was accustomed, some strains of old church music. At length I said—
"Eva, how old were you when Fritz became a monk?"
"Sixteen," she said softly; "he went away just after the plague."
"Then you have been separated twelve long years," I said. "God, then, sometimes exercises patience a long while."
"It does not seem long now," she said; "we both believed we were separated by God, and separated for ever on earth."
"Poor Eva," I said; "and this was the sorrow which helped to make you so good."
"I did not know it had been so great a sorrow, Thekla," she said with a quivering voice, "until last night."
"Then you had loved each other all that time," I said, half to myself.
"I suppose so," she said in a low voice. "But I never knew till yesterday how much."