sisted, that this hero of her dreams had in the course of the winter more and more assumed the shape of the curate—yet she had not for a moment, in the meeting with Emanuel, thought that his words meant more than an expression of sympathy, an attempt, in his position as priest, to comfort her and to reason with her. Therefore she now wished that she might die. All night she lay and trembled with apprehension at the coming day, because she could not imagine how she should ever have courage to look people in the face again, after having so ignominiously betrayed her secret.
All the same, when day dawned, and the sleepy chirping of the birds in the garden began to be heard outside her window, she grew calmer. She set herself more collectedly to go through what the curate had said, and how everything had happened.
The more vividly she recalled to her remembrance the occurrences of the evening, so much the more she was obliged to put constraint upon herself to drive away the thought that the curate had really asked her to be his wife. She remembered the tender tone in which he told her he loved her; she remembered how he had dried her wet cheeks and eyes with his handkerchief and begged her not to cry. And then he had also told her that he would come to-day to see her parents and ask for their consent.
She began to sob again. It was more and
