Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now rise to depart.  She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and so they sat silent until the first chords of the “Pastoral Symphony” drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by the pure in heart.

About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him.  Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz’s house, he listened to the announcement, “There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night,” and there remained until he saw two men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his home.

Through the sleepless night Elise’s thoughts were constantly going over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her.  But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the reason, perhaps, that Elise’s sympathies had been more powerfully excited by the tale than her faith.  It was not upon the final result of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed:  her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl’s early life, and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary.  “How fearful!” she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.

Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none more distracting than this was conceivable:  Had she proved the best instructor to this child of her spirit?  Had she even been capable of teaching her truest truth?  Was it the truth or herself to which Elise was always deferring?  Was obedience a duty when not impelled and sanctified by faith?  In what did the prime virtue of resignation consist?  Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing superstitious submission to the will of the believing?  Her reflections were not suggested by a shrewd guess.  She knew that the lot had been resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave’s extorted sacrifice.  The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna in her keeping.  If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God, as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High dishonored?  She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to Albert Spener?  Ought she not to say it to him?  There was no other to whom it could be said.  Had the coming day any duty so imperative as this?  She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away the day before.