place and would once more have sought his eyes, he was gone. She soon went home with her mother, who on the way let fall the words,—
“Now I have done my part; now let the Lord do his!”
When they had dined together, they two alone, the mother said furthermore, as she rose:—
“Well, we must go over, I suppose, to him,—the priest’s son. I do not know, it is true, how what he has undertaken is going to turn out, but I am quite sure he meant well. Put on your things again, child!”
The road to church, they two had so often trodden together, lay above the town. In the street they had never before been seen together; the mother, indeed, had scarcely been there since her return to the town. Now she turned immediately down toward the street, she would pass through its entire length, she wanted to walk there with her grown-up daughter.
On the afternoon of a confirmation Sunday, in a little town like this, everybody is in motion, either passing from house to house with congratulations, or walking up and down the street to see and to be seen. There is a pause
