The great darkness, in its damp surge beneath her feet, gave warning of an impenetrable deep; it behoved her to sink down thither, or rise in the attempt to lighten it. She asked herself why she had never before felt these thoughts, and she answered, because it was the moments only that had power over her, but then she felt that she had also power over them. She saw it now: as many moments would be given her, as there were flickering lights yonder, and she prayed God that she might perfect them all, that so His love might have kindled no light in vain. She rose, for the wind was icy told; she had not been long away, but as she went home again, she knew whither she was going. * * * The next day she stood at the director's door. Hot words were heard from within; one of the voices seemed to her like the bride's of yesterday; in another key, to-day, to be sure, but still it made Petra tremble. She waited a long time, but as it would not stop, at last she knocked. "Come in," said a man's voice angrily. "Oh!" screamed a lady, and as Petra entered, she saw a flying terror in a night dress, and with dishevelled hair, disappearing through a side door. The director, a tall man with blear eyes (which he hastened to hide with a pair of gold spectacles), was pacing backwards and forwards in agitation. His long nose so ruled his face, that all the rest was there for the nose's sake, the eyes stuck out like two gun barrels behind this rampart, the mouth was a trench before it, and the forehead, a light bridge over to the forest, or barricade of felled trees.--"What is it you want?" he stopped short; "is it you that wishes to join the chorus?" he asked hurriedly. "'The chorus,' what is that?"--"Ha! so you don't know that; what is it you want then?"--"I wish to be an actress."--"An actress indeed,--and don't know what a chorister is! But you speak the dialect?"--"'Dialect,' what is that?" "Eh! so you don't know that either, and will yet be an actress, well, well; yes, that's like the Norsemen. Dialect means, that you don't talk like we do."--"Yes, but I've been practising all the morning."--"Have you, indeed? Come, come, let me hear!" Petra took an attitude, and said with exactly the same accent as the bride of yesterday: "I greet you my love. Good morning!"--"I say, you are possessed, are you come here to make a fool of my wife!" A peal of laughter was heard in the adjoining room, the director opened the door, and without a trace of remembrance that but a moment since they had been fighting for life and death: "Here is a Norwegian hussy," he said, "caricaturing you, pray come and see her!" A lady's head with untidy, refractory black hair, dark eyes, and large mouth, peeped in and laughed. And yet Petra hastened towards her; for it must be the bride,--no, her mother, she thought as she drew nearer. She looked at the lady, and said: "I am not sure if it is you, or if it is your mother!" whereupon the director also laughed.