The elder children accompanied the Candidate to the school-room to spend an hour in drawing; the younger went to play; Petrea wished to borrow Gabriele, who at the sight of a gingerbread heart could not resist, and as a reward received a bit of it; Elise retired to her own chamber.
Poor Elise! she dared not at this moment descend into her own heart; she felt a necessity to abstain from thought--a necessity entirely to forget herself and the troubling impressions with which to-day had overwhelmed her soul.

A full hour was before her, an hour of undisturbed repose, and she hastened to her manuscript, in order to busy herself with those rich moments of life which her pen could call up at pleasure, and to forget the poor and weary present--in one word, to lose the lesser in the higher reality.

The sense of suffering, of which the little annoyances of life gave her experience, made her alive to the sweet impressions of that beauty and that harmonious state of existence which was so dear to her soul.
She wrote and wrote and wrote, her heart was warm, her eyes filled with tears, the words glowed upon her page, life became bright, the moments flew.

An hour and a half passed.

Her husband's tea-time came; he had such delight in coming home at this hour to find his wife and his children all assembled round the tea-table in the family room.