“How are you, my child?” said he, as he entered the room.  “You are not looking perfectly well.  You must not study too much.  But I have little time to-day to talk, and only came to tell you, you must not go to see the Countess Marie again.  I have been with her all night, and it is your fault.  So be careful, if her life is dear to you, that you do not go again.  She must leave here as soon as possible, and be taken into the country.  It would be best for you also to travel for a long time.  So good morning, and be a good child.”

With these words, he gave me his hand, looked at me affectionately in the eyes, as if he would exact the promise, and then went on his way to look after his sick children.

I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.  An agitation began to seize me, as water, which has long been over the fire without stirring, suddenly bubbles up, boils, heaves and rages until it overflows.

Not see her again!  I only live when I am with her.  I will be calm; I will not speak a word to her; I will only stand at her window as she sleeps and dreams.  But not to see her again!  Not to take one farewell from her!  She knows not, they cannot know, that I love her.  Surely I do not love her—­I desire nothing, I hope for nothing, my heart never beats more quietly then when I am with her.  But I must feel her presence—­I must breathe her spirit—­I must go to her!  She waits for me.  Has destiny thrown us together without design?  Ought I not to be her consolation, and ought she not to be my repose?  Life is not a sport.  It does not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert, which the sirocco whirls together and then asunder.  We should hold fast the souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us, and no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to struggle, and to die for them.  She would despise me if I deserted her love at the first roll of the thunder, as it were in the shadow of a tree, under which I have dreamed so many happy hours.

Then I suddenly grew calm, and heard only the words “her love;” they reverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was terrified at myself.  “Her love,” and how had I deserved it?  She hardly knows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do not deserve the love of an angel?  Every thought, every hope which arose in my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky and does not see the wires which restrain it.  And yet, why all this blissfulness, so near and so unattainable?  Cannot God work wonders?  Does He not work wonders every morning?  Has He not often heard my prayer when it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help came to the weary one?  These are not earthly blessings