This had taken place in the morning. Meta, after another sitting, had unexpectedly received an invitation to dinner from a friend of her mother's. She should not return till the evening. For the first time Elsa scarcely missed her friend. She was glad to be alone, and to be able to give way to her thoughts in silence. They were not cheerful, these thoughts. But she felt it a duty to think them out, so as to see her way clearly if possible. She thought she had succeeded, and found in it a calm satisfaction, which, as she said to herself, was truly her whole compensation for all she had renounced in secret. And in this resigned frame of mind she received with tolerable composure the news which Meta brought on her return home, which otherwise would have filled her with sorrow, that Meta was going--must go. She had found at the lady's to whom she had gone a letter from mamma, in which mamma made such terrible lamentations over her long absence, that she could not do otherwise than go at once--that was to say, the first thing tomorrow morning. What she felt she would not and could not say. It was an extraordinary frame of mind, in any case, as whilst she seemed to be drowned in tears, she broke into a smile the next moment, which she in vain attempted to suppress, until the smiles again merged into tears; and so she went on for the rest of the evening. The next morning this state of mind had reached such a pitch that Elsa became really uneasy about the extraordinary girl, and begged her to postpone her journey until she was somewhat calmer. But Meta stood firm. She was quite determined, and Elsa would think her quite right if she knew all; and she should know all, but by letter; by word of mouth she could not tell her without dying of laughter, and she did not wish to die just yet, for reasons which she also could not tell her without dying of laughter. And so she carried on the joke till she got into the carriage, in which August was to take her to the station. She had absolutely forbidden any one else to accompany her, "for reasons, Elsa, you know, which--there! you will see it all in the letter, you know, which--good-bye, dear, sweet, incomparable Elsa!" And off drove Meta. In the evening August, not without some solemnity, gave Elsa a letter which the young lady had given him at the last moment before starting, with strict injunctions to deliver it punctually twelve hours later, on the stroke of nine in the evening. It was a thick letter, in Meta's most illegible handwriting, from which Elsa with difficulty deciphered the following: "6 o'clock p.m. "Dearest Elsa,