O this secret purpose! That which the dean had so often condemned in her presence, SHE embellished with the calling of God, and dared to ask His blessing upon it! A life of appulance and frivolity, of jealousy and passion, of idleness and sensuality, of lies and growing unprincipledness, a life over which the vultures gather, as over a carcase, was that to which she longed to attach herself, and prayed God to consecrate! And it was to this life, that the dean and his daughter had helped her forward in the quiet parsonage, under the watchful eyes of the awakened church. When Signe, bright and cheerful as the winter morning, came in to greet her father, she found the study entirely filled with tobacco smoke. This was always a sign of trouble, but especially so early in the morning. He did not speak a word to her, but gave her the book,--she saw directly it was Petra's; a shadow of the mistrust and pain of yesterday, came over her, she dared not look at it; her heart beat so violently that she was obliged to sit down. But the same word that had attracted the dean's attention, caught hers too; she must see more, so she read on. Her first feeling was one of shame--not for Petra,--but because her father had seen it too. But she soon experienced the deep mortification, that comes when we find ourselves deceived by one we love. For a moment, the one who has been able to do it, seems greater, more ingenious, wiser than we, yea, he may even glide into the mysterious. But soon the mind is aroused in indignation; integrity is strengthened by the powers which are not secret, though they are unseen: we feel able to defy a hundred cunning devices; we DESPISE, what at first caused us mortification. Petra had seated herself at the piano in the dining room, and now they heard her singing: "The morning has dawned, and joy to awaken, --The forts of despondency stormed and taken,-- Over the glowing mountain tops, The host of the king of daylight drops. 'Up, up, up,' little birds of the wood, 'Up, up, up,' little children good, And up, my hope with the sun!" And then a storm swept over the instrument, and out of it burst the following song: "In vain you may plead, For my boat I must lead, Through the breakers rough, To the tempest tough. And should it be proved the last push from the shore, I must venture what never I ventured before. Not for fancy or boast Do I leave your coast;-- I must reach the deep sea, And the waves ride free. I must e'en see the keel, as she cuts through the wave, And thus prove if my vessel knows how to behave!"