mind, devotion seemed near her, but to be eluding her clasp. There lay the guiltless little penitent, her soul full of piety, but unable to pray,--her heart full of tears, but unable to weep. She sprang up in despair. God was not here either. She had thought she heard him in the tempest, and that the wind was his breath,--but on the way home her uncle had explained to her that it was nothing but a current of air occasioned by the change of temperature on the earth's surface, or by violent showers of rain, and she was convinced that she had been wrong and that her uncle knew very much more than the pastor. But if she believed her uncle, she could not believe in God; it was not her fault, and yet this doubt weighed upon her as the first crime of her life. Her trusting soul was like the iron that glows long after the fire in which it was heated is quenched; her faith was extinguished, but the influence that her faith had exerted upon her endured and became her punishment. It began to grow dark; yet still she stood with head bowed and downcast eyes beside the wooden crucifix upon the tomb of her parents. The Christ who had been nailed to the cross for the sake of what her uncle called an illusion, seemed to regard her so reproachfully that she did not dare to look up at him; he had shed his precious blood for the faith which she denied; she almost thought he would tear away the hand nailed to the cross and extend it in menace towards her. An inexplicable shudder ran through her; again she fell upon her knees. "Forgive, forgive!" she cried; and the tears burst forth and relieved the icy pressure upon her heart. Then something grasped her shoulder and raised her from the ground. Was it her uncle, or the foul fiend, who was standing beside her? "You are here, then," he sneered, "in the dark, kneeling and weeping. Aha! I came to look for my quiet little philosopher, and I find a whimpering child praying to a wooden doll! Can you tell me where Ernestine Hartwich is?" "Uncle," cried Ernestine, driven to defiance in her despair, "why do you persecute me so continually to-day? Can I not be alone for one hour? and must I give an account of every thought and word? You have taken from me everything in which I confided,--you have come between myself and God, so that I dare not go to the pastor, but must slip round his house as if I were a thief. Do you think all this does not pain me, and that I feel no remorse? Whatever you may teach me, I shall never be happy again. Why did you tell me there were no spirits, no angels, no God? I did not wish to know it. I loved God, and, however wretched I was, I could always hope that he would be kind and merciful to me; if no human being loved me, I could always think that he did. And now I must bear everything that happens to me, hoping nothing and loving nothing,--no one,--not even you!" Leuthold smiled, and stroked Ernestine's curls.