Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be forgotten. Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony" drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by the pure in heart. About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his home. Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her. But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed: her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life, and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.