CHAPTER XI.

INHARMONIOUS CONTRASTS.

The morning sun streamed brightly through the white muslin curtains of Ernestine's windows, yet she still slept in peaceful and childlike slumber. For the first time for many years, she was not cheated of her repose by haste to go to her work. The guardian angel, that Johannes had invoked to her side, forbade even her uncle's ghost to knock at her door, and still kept faithful watch beside her bed. It seemed as if the whole house were aware of its sacred presence, for a quiet as of a church reigned among its inmates. They were all up, but, at the command of their head, every door was softly opened and shut, every footfall noiseless. Johannes knew how much need Ernestine had of repose, and he would not have her disturbed. He even controlled the throbbing of his own heart, that longed to bid her good-morning.

The sleeper drew calmly in with every breath the repose that surrounded her,--and what a blessing it was for the poor, wearied child!

The Staatsraethin had superintended the arrangement of the breakfast-table, and was seated with her work at the window. But her hands were dropped idly in her lap, and her eyes, red with weeping, were fixed sadly upon the flame of the spirit-lamp that had been burning for an hour beneath the coffee-urn.

"Do you not think I had better have fresh coffee prepared? this has been waiting so long," she said to her son as he entered the room.

"Just as you please, mother dear," said Johannes. "You know I understand nothing of such things."

The Staatsraethin rang for the servant. "Regina, take this coffee away and bring back the urn. I will boil some more."

The maid did as she was directed, with a sullen face. "'Tis a shame to waste such good coffee!" she muttered as she went out.

"It is very disagreeable, mother," observed Johannes, "to have Regina criticising all our arrangements. I do not like to have servants of that sort about me. If you cannot break her of it, pray send her away."

"She does her work well, and is thoroughly honest," replied the Staatsraethin.

"That may be, but there certainly are servants to be had who would do their duty more respectfully and good-humouredly. I do not like to have my comfort destroyed by sullen faces around me. I like to have people who render their service cheerfully."

"It is not very easy to find them."

"They must be sought until they are found," said Johannes, cutting short the conversation by opening and beginning to read his newspaper.

The Staatsraethin sighed, but said not a word.

Regina re-entered with the urn, and asked crossly, "Is the Fraeulein not to be wakened yet?"

"No!" was Johannes's curt reply.

"Then the urn might as well be washed, if the coffee is not to be made until noon," she grumbled again, and left the room, closing the door with something of a slam.

"Now, mother, this really is too much. I cannot undertake the direction of the servant-maids, but I will not tolerate them when they are so insolent. Regina must conduct herself differently, or she goes!"

"You have suddenly grown very impatient with the girl," said his mother bitterly. "I hope you may always be as implicitly obeyed as you desire."

"I understand what you mean, mother, but it does not touch me. I desire only what is right,--obedience from the servants whom I hire, love from a wife who is my equal."

"Love alone will not answer."

"Yes, true, faithful love will."

"There must be submission and self-sacrifice."

"True love embraces all these,--submission, self-sacrifice, the entire self."

"It is not every one who can love truly; so be upon your guard that you are not intentionally or unintentionally deceived."

"Reassure yourself, mother, and spare me your misgivings," said Johannes with unusual sternness, again turning to his newspaper, while he listened to every rustle outside the door of the room.

The Staatsraethin brought from a cupboard a delicate little coffee-mill and began to grind some fresh coffee. The clock struck half-past eight.

"It is easy to see that the young lady has not been used to a regular household," the Staatsraethin could not forbear observing.

"I only see that she is worn out after the fatigue of yesterday."

"No one who is accustomed to early rising ever sleeps so late in the morning."

"It is impossible to rise early when one works all night long."

"It is a bad custom for the head of a household!"

"Mother," said Johannes, starting up, "I should be downright unhappy if I did not know how kind-hearted you really are."

"Indeed?" The Staatsraethin shook up the coffee, but her hands trembled visibly. "This girl changes everything. Since she came into the house, all things are wrong: to-day, I make you unhappy,--yesterday, I was no mother to you! And yet, my son, since the painful day when I gave you birth, I have never been more a mother to you than now in my anxiety for your true happiness!" She could say no more; her emotion choked her utterance.

"Mother dearest," cried Johannes, embracing her tenderly, "you must not shed a tear because of a hasty word of mine. Come forgive me,--I am really so happy to-day. My dear, good mother, scold your boy well, I beg."

The Staatsraethin smiled again, and stroked her darling's shining curls.

"God bless you, my dear son. It is because I love you so that I cannot give you to any but the noblest and best of women. I tremble lest you, who are without an equal in my eyes, should throw yourself away upon a wife who is unworthy of you."

"Trust me, mother, I understand and thank you, but, if you want me to be happy, love me a little less and Ernestine more! This is all I ask of you,--will you not do it?"

"The first I cannot do, but I will try to do the last, because you desire it, my son!"

"That's my own dear mother!" cried Johannes, kissing her still beautiful hands. "And now you may go and waken our guest, for I must see her before I go to the University."

"Here she is!" said the Staatsraethin, going forward to greet Ernestine. "Good-morning, my dear. How did you sleep?" And she kissed her brow.

Ernestine looked at her, surprised and grateful. "Oh, I slept as if rocked by angels,--I have not felt so rested and refreshed for a long time!" Then, holding out a bunch of lovely white roses to Johannes, she asked, "Did you have these beautiful roses laid outside my door?"

Johannes blushed slightly, and gazed enraptured at the beautiful creature. "Yes, I put them there myself."

"I thank you!" said Ernestine. "You are kinder to me than any one ever was before. I have many flowers in my garden, but none, I think, so lovely as these. They are the first flowers I ever had given to me. I know now how pleasant it is."

"Did your uncle never give you a bouquet upon your birthday?" asked the Staatsraethin.

"Oh, no! And I do not think it would have delighted me so from him!" said Ernestine, with artless ease.

Johannes's face beamed at these words. "When is your birthday, Ernestine?" he asked, while the Staatsraethin led her to the breakfast-table.

Ernestine set down the cup that she was just about putting to her lips, and looked at him in amazement "I do not know!"

"You do not know!" cried Johannes.

"I will ask my uncle,--he told me once, but I have forgotten."

The Staatsraethin clasped her hands. "Forgotten your own birthday? Is it possible? Was it never celebrated?"

"Celebrated?" repeated Ernestine in surprise. "No, why should it have been celebrated?"

"What! do you know nothing of this affectionate custom?"

Ernestine shook her head almost mournfully. "I know of no loving customs."

The Staatsraethin looked at her with compassion. "Then you hardly know how old you are?"

"Not exactly; but my father died when I was twelve years old,--shortly before his death he reproached me for being so little and weak for twelve years old,--and since then ten summers have passed away."

"Poor child!" said the Staatsraethin. "I begin to understand!"

"I thought you would, mother," said Johannes from the other side of the table.

"Your uncle has deprived you of many of the pleasures of life," continued the Staatsraethin.

"Such pleasures, perhaps. But I must not be ungrateful,--he has given me others no less fair and great!"

"And what were they?"

"He has taught me to think and to study. There can be no greater or purer pleasures than these."

Again the Staatsraethin's brow was overcast.

Johannes saw it, and broke off the conversation. "Ernestine, it is not good for you to drink your coffee black. It excites your nerves."

"On the contrary, my uncle bids me always take it so, to stimulate me,--without it, I often could not begin my day's work."

"That accords entirely with your uncle's system of education. First he utterly prostrates you by wakefulness and study at night, and then stimulates you by artificial means. Why, you yourself can understand that such a life of alternate prostration and over-excitement must wear you out. I really do not know what to think of your uncle in this respect."

Ernestine looked down, evidently impressed by the truth of Johannes's words.

"But tell me, Johannes," said the Staatsraethin, "why do you address Fraeulein Ernestine by her first name, when she does not authorize you to do so by returning the familiarity?"

"She asks me to do so."

"Oh, yes, I begged your son to call me Ernestine,--it makes me feel like a child again, and as if I could begin my life anew!"

"But you should address him by his first name, and not have the intimacy all upon one side."

Ernestine blushed. "I cannot do so now,--by-and-by, perhaps."

"Leave it to time and Ernestine's own feelings, mother dear. I shall not ask for it until it comes naturally. Some time when she wishes to give me a special pleasure she will do it. And now good-by, Ernestine. I must go. I lecture at nine, but as soon as I get through I will return."

Ernestine looked up at him with glistening eyes, and breathed, scarcely audibly, "Farewell, my friend."

Johannes pressed her hand, and then, turning to his mother, said, "Dear mother, I leave Ernestine to you for an hour, and hope with all my heart that you will understand each other. But, at all events, remember what you promised me."

"Most certainly I will, my son." He went as far as the door, then lingered, and, calling his mother to him, whispered imploringly, "Be kind to her,--all that you do for her you do for me."

And, with one more look of longing love at Ernestine, he was gone. It was very hard to go. It seemed to him that he must stay,--that Ernestine would escape him if he did not guard her well. He would have turned back again if his duty had not been so imperative. "If I only find her here when I return!" he said to himself one moment, and the next he blamed himself for his childish weakness. He loved her too well. The one hour of lecture seemed to him an eternity. He longed to see her again almost before he had crossed the threshold that separated him from her.

How beautiful she was to-day after her refreshing sleep,--how maidenly! If, when he returned, she looked at him with those glistening eyes, he could not control himself,--he would throw himself at her feet and implore her to be his. The decisive word must be spoken,--he must have certainty. The state of doubt into which he was plunged by the strange contrast between Ernestine's cold, stubbornly expressed opinions and her tender personal behaviour towards himself was not to be borne any longer. Only one hour separated him from the goal for which he longed with every pulse of his strong, manly nature. Oh, were it only over!

"Do you like beans?" the Staatsraethin asked Ernestine.

"Why do you ask me?"

"Only because you are to have them at dinner to-day."

"Thank you, but I cannot dine with you."

"Why not?"

"My uncle might return unexpectedly from his journey, and be angry if he did not find me at home."

"Strange! How comes it that you, who contend so earnestly for freedom, are under such strict control? Is it not somewhat of a contradiction?"

Ernestine started.

The Staatsraethin continued: "You are battling for the independence of woman, you brand as slavery a wife's obedience to her protector, and yet a man who, as I understand the case, is far more dependent upon you than you are upon him, has such complete dominion over you that you do not dare to stay from home a day without his permission."

Ernestine was again startled and surprised. "You are right. But I have grown up under his control. It has become a habit with me, so that I am hardly conscious of it, and it has never yet been so opposed to my wishes as to induce me to shake it off."

"Now, let me ask you, my dear, whether you regard this dull, half-unconscious habit of submission as nobler and loftier than the loving, voluntary obedience that a wife yields to a husband?"

Ernestine was silent for a moment, and then said with her own generous frankness, "No, it is not. But I have brought it upon myself, and cannot escape from it as long as my uncle possesses the legal right of my guardian."

"But this legal right does not in any way affect your personal freedom as long as you do not desire to do anything contrary to law."

"He always told me that the guardian was the master of the ward. And if this tyrannical regulation had not applied equally to the male and female sex, I should long ago have attacked it in my publications."

"That would not have done much good, I fear," said the Staatsraethin dryly.

Ernestine shrugged her shoulders. "None of my writings effect much good. But they are not meant to be anything more than a few of the many drops of water that must one day wear away the stone that dams the course of the pure waters of reason."

"We will not discuss such abstract subjects," said the Staatsraethin evasively. "I would rather persuade you to stay with us to-day."

"If I only thought that I should not be a burden to you!"

"You certainly will not be to me, and you will give my son a pleasure far greater than the annoyance to which your absence may subject your guardian. But you are the best judge of what you ought to do."

Ernestine laid her hand upon the Staatsraethin's. "I will stay!"

"There,--that's right! Johannes would never have forgiven me if I had failed to persuade you to stay." She rang the bell. Regina appeared, and carried away the coffee-tray.

"You may bring me the beans, I will prepare them," said the Staatsraethin. Regina brought in the beans in a dish, with a bowl for the stalks.

"I'm sure you will excuse me," said the Staatsraethin to Ernestine, and she seated herself by the window, knife in hand, ready to begin her task.

Ernestine looked on in astonishment. "Do you do that yourself?"

"Why not? The cook has a great deal to do to-day, and I am glad to assist her."

"I would help you if I knew how," said Ernestine.

"Try it,--perhaps it will amuse you. It does not require much skill." The old lady, quite delighted at Ernestine's interest in domestic affairs, handed her another knife and a bean, saying, "Look! you first strip off the stem and those tough fibres,--so. The people in this part of the country are apt to pay no attention to the fibres, but if you do not strip them off they are very tough. And now cut the bean lengthwise. Stop!--not so thick,--a little finer. Now, don't put the stems back in the dish, but here in this bowl! See! everything in the world can be learned, and, if you should not be compelled to do it, it is at least well to know how."

A gentle sigh escaped her as she remembered that her own circumstances had once, before she had lost her property by her brother's failure, been such as to make these homely offices entirely unnecessary.

Ernestine contemplated with smiling surprise the Staatsraethin's enthusiasm in encouraging her to undertake this new role. She asked herself seriously if it were possible that this was really an intellectual woman. But one glance at the broad, thoughtful brow and the clear, expressive eyes of the speaker convinced her of the truth.

Lost in these reflections, Ernestine continued her novel taskwork, but the Staatsraethin suddenly discovered, to her horror, that she was throwing the stems in with the beans, and the beans into the bowl of stems and strings.

"My dear," she cried, "see what you are doing! now I shall have to pick over the whole dishful!"

Ernestine threw down the knife and leaned back in her chair. "I never was made for such work! Forgive me, but I cannot think it worth while to learn it. I shall never be so situated as to need such knowledge."

"As you please," said the Staatsraethin coldly.

"Are you displeased with me? Is it possible that you are displeased with me because I cannot cut beans?" She seized the old lady's busy hand. "Frau Staatsraethin, make some allowance for me. You must not ask one to do what she is not fit for. Would you ask the fish to fly, or the bird to swim? Of course not. Do not, then, expect a person who is at home only in a different world to take an interest in the every-day concerns of this."

"This strife about the beans you make, When really crowns are now at stake,

we might say," remarked the Staatsraethin. "And certainly in our case these matters are not so widely different. What is most important cannot be entirely divided here from what is unimportant. Such little household occupations, slight, even insignificant, as they may appear, belong to the responsibilities of a woman's position. They are stitches in the web of her life. If a single one is dropped, the whole is gradually frayed!"

Ernestine shrugged her shoulders. "You are perfectly right from your point of view, Frau Staatsraethin, but your point of view is not mine. To me a woman's mission is something higher. A noble mind cannot condescend to occupy itself with such cares, which are--forgive me the expression--always more or less sordid."

The Staatsraethin frowned slightly, but she did not interrupt Ernestine, who continued: "It is hard enough that so much of the brute cleaves to us that we must eat and drink to keep our physical mechanism in order; thus, in the process of development, we never attain any higher degree of perfection. We ought to take pride in developing ourselves as fully as possible, in contending against every animal appetite instead of making a formal study how best to pamper it. We ought to blush for our frail, indigent physical nature, instead of making an idol of it and regarding her who sacrifices to it most freely as the loftiest illustration of feminine virtue."

"That all sounds very fine," said the Staatsraethin, "but it is, nevertheless, a deplorable mistake. With the capacity for pleasure the Creator has bestowed upon us the right to enjoy. We ought only to see to it that our pleasures are true and noble. It is false shame that would repudiate what we cannot live without, and it sounds strangely contradictory from the lips of a natural philosopher like yourself. Before whom would you blush? Before your fellow-beings? Certainly not, for they all share your mortal infirmities. And, since you do not believe in a God, where does there exist for you any supernatural ideal, any bodiless spirit, subject to do change nor desire of change, before whom you can be ashamed of being a mortal?"

"In myself,--in my own imagination."

"Yes, yes, this is the usual jargon. Because you deny your God, and still feel the need of Him, you exalt yourself into a divinity, and are humiliated at the idea of your imprisonment within a mortal frame!"

"Oh, no, I am not so vain and arrogant. There is, if I may thus express it, a refinement of mind that is shocked by the coarse demands of material nature. And I should be afraid of degrading myself in my own eyes if, in satisfying these demands, I used the time and ability that might be employed for higher purposes."

"You speak as if by the responsibilities of a woman I meant devotion solely to creature comforts. I understand by these something more than eating and drinking. Order and cleanliness, for example, are among the necessities of our life, especially for fine natures, for they belong to the domain of the beautiful, and must be the special concern of the female head of a household, whatever may be the number of her servants. To be sure, there are women who are so busy with brooms and dusters that we might almost think them neat from their love of dirt. But I am not speaking of such extreme cases. The superintendence of servants, if you have them, the distribution of labour, the purchase of clothing, with its hundred various branches, and, finally, the direction and care of children, are all necessities of existence, duties to which no woman, even the wealthiest, can refuse to attend. Least of all should they be left to the husband. I consider it one of our most sacred duties to relieve him from all material cares, that he may be free to work for the benefit of mankind. Thus we assist him, modestly though it be, in the great work, by enabling him to keep himself free and fit for his labours."

"I frankly acknowledge that I am incapable of such modesty. I cannot be satisfied with an excellence that I must share with every housekeeper. I am conscious of the ability to assist directly in the cause of human progress. Why should I waste it in labour wholly possible to mediocrity?"

"You depreciate this labour because you do not know it. Rightly conceived and executed, it may prove of the greatest significance. For the more cultivated and intellectual a woman is, the more capable is she of appreciating the importance of the task assigned to man, and the necessity of lightening it as much as she can by due care of his physical and mental welfare. And with this thought ever in her mind, the meanest employment, the most menial occupation, becomes a labour of love. And even the most careful housewife can find time, if she is so disposed, to educate herself still further, and so to form and exercise her talents as to make them the delight of her husband's hours of leisure. That is what I understand, my dear, to be a wife in the truest sense." She suddenly took Ernestine's hand and drew her towards her. "And thus,--why should I not speak frankly?--thus I would have the woman to whom I am to be a mother."

Ernestine looked at her in amazement. "Will you--are you to be a mother to me, then?"

The Staatsraethin hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I should like to be. You are an orphan, and I pity you. If you would only be what a woman should be,--if you would only conform to our social and Christian views, I could give you all a mother's love."

Ernestine withdrew her hand. "I thank you for your kind intentions, but, if these are the only conditions upon which you can bestow your affection upon me, I fear I shall never deserve it."

The Staatsraethin shook her head in rising displeasure. "You do not understand me."

"I understand you far better than I am understood by you."

"You probably think my homely wisdom very easy of comprehension--while yours is too deep for my powers of mind." The Staatsraethin laid down her knife, and pushed away the dish of beans. "But the time may come when you will think of what I have been saying, and will be sorry that you have repulsed me."

"Frau Staatsraethin, I have not repulsed you. I am only too honest to accept a regard bestowed upon me on conditions that I cannot fulfil. To gain your approval I should be obliged to equivocate,--and I have always been true. It is robbery to accept an affection springing from a false idea of one's character. What would it profit me to throw myself on your breast and silently return your tenderness, when I know that you would love me not for what I am, but for what I might pretend to be? Sooner or later you would discover your error, and despise me for deceiving you. No, I am not unworthy of the love of good people just as I am, but if I cannot win it by frankness and conscientiousness, I will never try to steal it."

"You speak proudly. Such self-assertion does not become a young girl towards an old woman, least of all towards the mother of her best friend and benefactor."

"Frau Staatsraethin," cried Ernestine, "I shall always be grateful to your son for his kindness to me, but surely I ought not to testify my gratitude by hypocrisy and slavish servility."

"My dear," said the Staatsraethin, controlling herself, "you agitate yourself causelessly. I am a simple, practical woman, who does not speak your language, and cannot follow you in your flights. I have no desire to drag you down to us. I simply wish to show you the world in its actual shape, that you may know what awaits you when you come to make your home in it; and I would gladly receive you in my motherly arms, lest you should receive too severe a shock from your first contact with reality."

"Oh, Frau Staatsraethin, if the world is what you describe it to me, I would rather remain above it, in a colder but purer sphere."

"I should have thought the sphere in which you were not safe from the assaults of angry peasants hardly a desirable one. I, at least, should prefer the modest discharge of domestic duties in the circle of home. But tastes differ."

Ernestine shrank from these words. "Truth is born in heaven, but stoned upon the earth. Those who wish to bring it into the world must have the courage of martyrs. These are such old commonplaces that one can hardly give utterance to them without their seeming trite. Those who recognize truth must speak it, and the happiness of possessing it outweighs with me the misery that I may incur in speaking it."

"Forgive me, but these are phrases that utterly fail to cast any halo around such a disgraceful occurrence as that of yesterday."

"Frau Staatsraethin!" cried Ernestine, flushing up.

"Be calm, my dear child, I am speaking like a mother to you. What can you gain by casting discredit by your conduct, beforehand, upon the truths that you wish to assert? Who will place any confidence in the understanding and learning of a woman who does not understand how to guard herself from ridicule? Pray listen to me calmly, for I speak as he would who would give his life for you every hour of the day. I would empty my heart to you, that no shadow may exist between us. The world is thus pitiless towards everything in the conduct of a woman that provokes remark, because our ideas of propriety have assigned her a modest retirement in the home circle, and it sees, in the bold attempt to emancipate herself from such universally received ideas, a want of womanly modesty and sense of honour, which, it thinks, cannot be too severely punished. Publicity is a thorny path. At every step aside from her vocation, although never so carefully taken, a woman meets with briers and nettles that wound her unprotected feet but are carelessly trodden down by a man. And even although she succeeds in weaving for herself a crown in this unlovely domain, it is, as one of our poets justly says, 'a crown of thorns.'"

Ernestine was looking fixedly upon the ground. The Staatsraethin could not guess her thoughts. Suddenly she raised her head proudly. "And if it be a crown of thorns, I will press it upon my brow. It is dearer to me than the fleeting roses of commonplace happiness, or the pinched head-gear of a German housewife!"

The Staatsraethin looked up to heaven, as though praying for patience. Then she replied with an evident effort at self-control, "I grant you that the lot of woman might be, and should be, better than it is. But we cannot improve it by struggling against it, but by enduring it with the dignity which will win us esteem, while our struggles can only expose us to the ridicule that always attends unsuccessful effort."

"Frau Staatsraethin, I hope to turn ridicule into fear."

"And if you should succeed, what will it avail you? Which is the happier, to have people shun you in fear, or to be surrounded by a loving circle for whom you have suffered?"

"I do not live for myself,--I live for the cause of millions of women for whom it is my mission to struggle and contend. Even if I could be ever so happy, I should despise myself were I able in my own good fortune to forget the misery of others. But I confess frankly that I could not be happy with such a lot as you prescribe for woman. Whoever has once floated upon the ocean of thought that embraces the world, would die of homesickness if confined within the narrow limits of the domestic circle."

The Staatsraethin dropped her hands in her lap,--her patience was exhausted. "It is of no use,--you cannot comprehend the words of reason!"

"Do you call that reason? I assure you, my ideas of reason are very different."

"Of course, of course. You are thinking of the definitions of Kant and Hegel. You are talking of what is called 'pure reason,' that repudiates everything hitherto dear and sacred in men's eyes, and would have created a far better world if God Almighty had not so bungled the work beforehand. But scatter abroad your doctrines far and wide,--they cannot do much harm, for they only serve to show upon how flimsy an argument the enemies of God base their denial of Him. But such a person can never be cordially received into a family circle. She can never inspire confidence, and that grieves me for my Johannes's sake!"

Ernestine was silent for awhile, and then looked sadly at the Staatsraethin. "I have not asked you to receive me into your family, Frau Staatsraethin. I know that my opinions make me an object of dislike wherever I go. Any one who sees through the defects and abuses of society will never be a welcome guest, but will be shunned as an embodied reproach. Strong-minded women, as they are called, think me narrow-minded,--the narrow-minded call me strong-minded. I belong to no party, I am opposed to all. It is a terrible fate, and nothing can help me to endure it, save a good conscience."

"Or excessive self-conceit," the Staatsraethin interposed half aloud.

Ernestine blushed deeply. Scarcely restraining her anger, she replied, "Frau Staatsraethin, people, accustomed all their lives long to the modesty of stupidity that characterizes the women of your circle, will find it very easy to stigmatize as self-conceit the courage of a woman daring to have an opinion of her own."

"It is not necessarily stupidity that prevents one from trumpeting forth one's opinions as indisputable truth."

"Frau Staatsraethin," said Ernestine, trembling from head to foot, "if you possessed for me one drop of the motherly kindness of which you spoke a little while ago, you would judge me less harshly. A mother makes allowance for her child. How could you wish to be my mother, when you are not disposed to make any allowance for me?"

"I really cannot tell how I fell into such an error,--and yet I was sincere, perfectly sincere. God knows I meant kindly by you. If you knew the part that you are playing in the eyes of the world, you would be more humble and grateful for the sacrifice,--yes, listen to the truth, you who pride yourself upon your frankness,--for the sacrifice, I say, that a mother makes when she opens her house and heart to such a person for her son's sake."

Ernestine sat pale and mute, her hands folded in her lap; she could not stir. The Staatsraethin continued, greatly irritated: "But I did it; I conquered myself, and tried to forget your skepticism, your unwomanliness, your reputation. I hoped--hoped for my son's sake--that you would change, and I would gladly have been a help to you. But you repulse my first approach in a manner that makes me tremble at the thought that my Johannes has given his loving heart to such a hardened nature,--that he should have by his fireside a woman who despises a wife's duties, and who will be the ruin of himself and his home."

Ernestine sprang up. She gasped for breath, and her words broke forth from her with painful effort. "Frau Staatsraethin, I can assure you there has never been a word or hint at any nearer relation between your son and myself. I never would have crossed your threshold had I known how I was slandered. I promise you, you shall have no cause for alarm. I shall never disgrace you by forcing you to receive me as your son's wife. If he should ever offer me his hand, I should refuse it. As I do not pretend to believe in a God, I cannot offer to appeal to him, but I swear to you by my honour, which is dearer to me than life----"

"Stop, stop!" the Staatsraethin interrupted her in mortal terror. "Oh, my Johannes, what am I doing! Ernestine, do not make matters worse than they are. Do not drive them to extremities. I want you to reject, not my son, but your own faults and errors. Promise me to give up these, and you shall be the beloved daughter of my heart!"

"I cannot promise you that. I do not wish to do so. Do you think I would beg and fawn for the doubtful happiness of reigning at a fireside where every occasion would be improved to remind me of the sacrifice that was made in enduring me?--where the only commendation that I could earn would be for the skilful management of sauce-pans and dish-cloths, and where a badly-cooked dinner would brand me as a useless member of society? No, you know less of me than I thought, if you imagine that the chasm that you have opened between us can ever be bridged over. Spare me the humiliation of further explanations. I thank you for your hospitality. I leave you, as I did years ago, when I stood trembling and wet through before you, and you had nothing for me but cold words of reproof, that made me feel myself a little culprit, although I was as unconscious of wrong as I am to-day. Then I would sooner have died than have returned to you, although your son, blessings upon him! would have treated me like a sister. Ten years afterwards he has brought me again to you and overcome my old childish timidity; but the first moment that I stepped across your threshold and encountered your cold greeting, I knew that there was no home for me here!" She covered her face with her hands, and leaned exhausted against the door through which she was about to leave the room.

The Staatsraethin, like all impulsive but really fine-tempered people, was easily appeased and touched. She hastened to her and threw her arms around her. "My dear child! Can you not forgive the hasty words of an anxious mother? Indeed I was unjust. You are more sinned against than sinning. I thought only of my son, and--"

"There was no need to stab me to the heart for his sake. I never dreamed of becoming the wife of your son,--he is far too hostile to my views, much as I esteem him. I wished for nothing but the happiness of calling one human being in the world friend. But I can go without that too. I will prove it to you. Farewell!"

And she hurried out, followed by the Staatsraethin, who could not prevent her from gathering together the few things she had brought with her and leaving the house.

The mother looked after her with anxious forebodings. "What will Johannes say? How he will blame his mother!" she lamented,--but she soon collected herself, and said calmly and firmly, "In God's name, then, I will bear it. It is better thus!"