The next day at the parting meal, he bade her the most tender farewell, "He was of her friend's opinion," he said, "that she ought to begin her career ALONE. In the struggle she would meet, she would find that it was good to know, that in one place there lived a few on whom she could rely; only to know with certainty that they were constantly PRAYING for her,--she would see that it would help!"--After the adieu to Petra, he turned with a welcome to Odegaard. "To be united in love to one and the same is the most beautiful introduction to love one another." The dean certainly never thought in this greeting, of that which first made Signe red, then Petra; and if Odegaard; they did not know, for neither of them ventured to look at him. But when the horses were at the door, and the three friends stood around the young girl, and all the servants round the carriage, Petra whispered, as for the last time she embraced Signe: "I know I shall soon hear important news from you; may God bless it!" An hour after she saw only the white pinnacles that showed where the place lay. CHAPTER XII. THE SCENE. One evening just before Christmas the theatre of the metropolis was sold out; a new actress was to appear, about whom there were the greatest expectations. Sprung from the people--her mother was a poor fisherwoman--she had reached her present position by the help of others who had discovered her talents, and she gave great promise. In the time before the curtain rose, all sorts of things were whispered about her; she was said to have been a strange unruly child, and later when grown up, to have been betrothed to six at one time, and to have kept it going for half a year. The town was in such an uproar on her account, that she had had to be conducted out of it by a guard of police; it was remarkable that the director should allow such a character to appear. Others affirmed there was not the slightest truth in the statement; she had been educated in a clergyman's family in Bergen's shire, from the time she was ten years old; she was a cultivated and amiable girl, they knew her well, she must have wonderful talent; she was so handsome.