Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

CHAPTER X.

NOWHERE AT HOME.

On this very evening there was a social meeting of the Professors at the Staatsräthin's. Johannes had entirely forgotten it. As the afternoon passed and evening approached without bringing him, the Staatsräthin grew really anxious about him, apart from the embarrassment which his absence caused with regard to her guests, to whom she knew not what excuse to make. She was walking to and fro in her garden behind the house, where her guests were to assemble and enjoy the lovely twilight in the open air.

Suddenly Angelika joined her in breathless haste. "Mother, mother, I have found out where Johannes has been all day long!" she cried, taking her hat off to cool her forehead, and throwing herself into a garden-chair. "Moritz has just got back from Hochstetten, whither he was called this afternoon, and he tells a wonderful tale. The whole village is in commotion,--the behaviour of the Hartwich has actually excited a tumult. There was an outbreak, and Johannes,--our Johannes,--publicly declared himself her champion!"

The Staatsräthin clasped her hands and gazed incredulously at Angelika. "Is this true?"

"Oh, this is not all!" Angelika went on to say. "Moritz did not even see Johannes, for he was all the time--now, be composed, mother--in the castle with the Hartwich!"

"Good heavens!" cried her mother, seating herself upon a bench. "Has it gone so far already?" A long pause ensued. At last the anxious mother folded her hands in her lap and said softly to herself, "My son, my son, what are you doing?"

Angelika said nothing, but turned away. The same evening star that had beamed so gently upon Ernestine and Johannes glittered in the tears which filled the sister's eyes as she looked up at it.

"Angelika," said her mother mournfully, "you should not have told me this without some preparation. You forget that I am grown old, and my many trials of late years have robbed me of the power of endurance that I once possessed. How much I have gone through since your uncle Neuenstein's bankruptcy! All our misfortunes have come from Unkenheim,--your uncle's unlucky scheme in the purchase of the Hartwich factory, the loss of three-fourths of our property in the affair, and the consequent necessity of our leaving our home that Johannes might practise his profession for his livelihood here. And nothing of all this would have happened if we had never seen Unkenheim! And this wretched Hartwich girl comes too from that place! You will see that she is going to bring us additional misfortune! Shall we never draw a free breath again? Why should this creature disturb our dearly-purchased peace of mind?"

"Mother dear," Angelika entreated, kneeling down beside the Staatsräthin, "mother dear, do not cry now when we expect guests. Be comforted,--things will not go as wrong as you fear. Come, be again the calm, prudent mother who never seemed so great to me as in misfortune. I trust in God, and our Johannes----"

She did not finish her sentence, but arose hastily, for several of their friends appeared at the garden-gate. The Staatsräthin, accustomed to control herself, had regained her self-possession, and received her guests with her usual graceful cordiality.

"Where is your son?"

"Is your son not at home?"

To this question, asked at least twenty times, she replied always with unwearied patience, "He was suddenly called away, but I hope he will soon be here."

When old Heim appeared, he listened with a queer smile to the terrible tale that Angelika whispered into his ear.

"What a fellow he is,--this Johannes!" he said with kindly humour. "With her! with her at the castle! That's going rather too fast,--eh?"

"Oh, uncle!" cried Angelika, "is that all the sympathy you have for us in so grave a matter?"

"Why, you see, my child, the matter does not seem so grave to me as to you. Johannes is a man, and knows what he is about. You act as if he were a beardless boy, whose nurse ought to follow him about. If this clever girl pleases him, it is a proof of his taste. Whatever you do, I will not league with you for all the beseeching glances of those forget-me-not eyes of yours." And the old gentleman seated himself deliberately upon Angelika's straw hat, that she had forgotten to take from the chair where she had thrown it. "God bless me! what kind of a cushion have you put in my chair?" he cried, producing, amid universal laughter, a flattened mass of straw and violets that bore not the faintest resemblance to a hat.

"That comes of leaving one's things about. Who would have supposed that I should go about in my old age sitting upon straw hats? Well, well, child, to-day is a day of misfortunes!"

The company quickly assembled. The ladies seated themselves at the large round tea-table, the gentlemen stood about in groups, and, as smoking was allowed, puffed forth blue clouds of smoke into the clear evening air.

The moon began to cast a pale light through the crimson evening glow. Night-moths fluttered hither and thither, and now and then a big booming beetle would fly around the heads of the startled ladies. The tired birds flew in among the bushes to seek their nests, arousing the alarm of the younger girls who were in great terror of bats.

Suddenly a wiry voice without was heard chirping Rückert's song:

And Elsa, leaning on her brother's arm, appeared at the door. The Staatsräthin arose.

"Ah, my dearest, motherly friend," cried Elsa from afar, gliding towards her, "I am late, am I not? Could my thoughts have borne me hither, I should have been with you long ago; but imagine--our droschky lost a wheel--and we had to walk all the way."

"I am very sorry," said the Staatsräthin kindly. "You must have had quite a fright."

"Yes, it was a most unfortunate intermezzo, disturbing our anticipations of the pleasant evening," said Herbert politely.

"Oh, it did not spoil my enjoyment," laughed Elsa with pretty assurance, and she piped out the last couplet of her song:

"The only thing to lament was our tardiness in reaching you, and I ran myself quite out of breath."

"Not quite!" replied the Staatsräthin with a smile. "You were trilling very gaily as you came along the Bergstrasse."

"Really, did you hear me?" asked Elsa in charming confusion. "My voice, then, was more fortunate than I,--it reached you sooner!"

"How is your wife?" the Staatsräthin inquired of Herbert.

"Thank you,--she is always the same. The constant spectacle of her sufferings, without the power to alleviate them, is almost too much for me."

The Staatsräthin looked compassionately at Herbert's sunken cheeks. "Poor Frau Herbert! and you too are greatly to be pitied!"

"I thank you for your sympathy,--it helps to lighten the burden of my anxiety on her account."

Elsa had not listened to this grave conversation; she had already joined the company, and the Staatsräthin followed with Herbert.

"A bat! a bat!" cried one of the younger gentlemen as Elsa approached, and he pointed to a bird just whirring past.

"You are severe," one of his brethren said to him in a low voice.

"Only look," whispered a third, "Herbert is as fine as usual in a dress coat. It is not fair to appear in full dress when he knows that by the rules of these meetings we are all to come in morning costume."

"It is his way,--no one could expect anything else of Herbert!" said Taun.

"He's a fool," said Meibert,--"the charm of ease in an undress coat is one of the chief attractions of these meetings. At least I find it so."

"So do I, so do I," cried one and another of the party. Meanwhile Elsa was nodding and bowing in every direction. She exulted in the consciousness of giving so much pleasure by her presence. She loved every one, and every one loved her. Earth was a paradise, full of faith, hope, and charity,--through it she fluttered like a kindly fairy at her own sweet will. She was a little alarmed at not seeing Möllner, and her gaiety received a severer check than when she had nearly found her "flowery grave." But she comforted herself,--he would come,--he could not stay away from the place where Elsa was. And she determined not to visit his absence upon the company,--they were not to blame for it,--she would join in the conversation. There was something touching in her good-humoured vanity. She would use the advantages which she was conscious of possessing over others only for their benefit. She took pleasure in her imaginary gift of conversation only because she could thereby amuse her dear friends by means of it. How should she know that she was ridiculed and laughed at? She saw that mirth abounded wherever she was. How could it be caused by anything but delight in her presence? Her confidence in the esteem and love of her fellows was impregnable, for it was rooted in her unbounded confidence in her own excellence. Who would not love a creature so good, so talented, and withal so modest that she was kind and gentle to all? Why, no one could help it. This conviction inspired her in society with a self-possession that carried her untouched through all the contempt and sneers that she everywhere provoked, and kept her quiet self-sufficiency unruffled. Most happily for her, she felt all the blessing without an idea of the curse of mediocrity that attached to her in the presence of others.

She was quite idyllic to-day, for Elsa in the midst of nature was a very different person, although scarcely less lovely, from Elsa in her study. She had encircled with leaves her large straw hat,--the wide brim of which kept flapping up and down as she tripped about,--and a nosegay of wild flowers was stuck in her bosom. She loved wild flowers far more than garden flowers. Everybody admired garden flowers,--she pitied the wild flowers, and would atone by her love to the poor neglected blossoms of the field. Her delicate sense perceived beauty in the humblest thing that grew. She did not need grace of form and vividness of colour to impress her with the wisdom of the Creator. Every dandelion, every blade of grass, was lovely in her eyes. How wondrous was its structure! How its modest withdrawal from superficial eyes accorded with her own retiring nature! And then it was the prerogative of a poetic temperament to see what was hidden to all the world beside. It was a severe blow, therefore, to her tender heart when the professor of botany asked, "But, Fräulein Elsa, why have you brought a bunch of hay to a house noted for its capital suppers?"

"Oh, you naughty man," she pouted, "you cannot tease me out of my love for these darlings."

"Do you take all these weeds under your protection?" asked the implacable professor. "Then you must have enough to do when the cattle are driven out to pasture."

All laughed, and Elsa laughed too. She could take a jest.

"But," she replied, "to fall a sacrifice to the stronger is a fate from which even Flora herself cannot shield her children. Thank God, they all grow again! I do not wish to save them from the animals whom they serve for food. It is an enviable lot to sustain life in others by one's own death. I wish to shield them from the contempt of men. Is it not a sacred duty to espouse the cause of the despised? And those who do not discharge it conscientiously in small matters will neglect it in more important things. So let me put my poor thirsty flowers in water, that they may lift up their little heads again."

They handed her a glass of water, into which the botanist recommended that a lump of sugar should be thrown, because, as he said, sugar-and-water was so much more nutritious.

"Go, go, naughty man," said Elsa, arranging her bouquet. "Look! is not that lovely?"

"My good Fräulein Elsa," cried the professor, "do not ask me to be enthusiastic over the beauty of a flower. I have long lost the sense of delight that people feel at sight of a flower. The most beautiful flowers for me are those that furnish most matter for scientific investigation."

"What a prosaic point of view!" cried Elsa. "Tell me, ladies, can there be anything more monstrous than a botanist who does not love flowers? It is as unnatural as for a musician to take no pleasure in music. It is treason to the scientia amabilis."

"You say so," replied the professor with some asperity, "only because you do not know what is at the present day called 'the lovely science.' I assure you, modern botany has, as De Bury remarks, no more right to this title than any other science. It is only the knowledge of a couple of thousands of names of flowers and the manifold conditions of their existence,--the examination into their manner of life,--in other words, the physiology of plants. The flower is not the end, but the means to an end, the end of physics, physiology, and every other science: the discovery of the whole by a knowledge of a part Let this part be plant, man, or beast, we are all searching for the same laws, and it is just as unnecessary that a botanist should be fond of flowers as that a physiologist should be a philanthropist."

Elsa blushed rosy red at these words. "Möllner loves mankind,--I know he does," she whispered.

"So much the better for him if he does," said the professor smiling. "That is a private satisfaction of his own, and we will not disturb it. But, seen in the light of his profession, men are no more to him than plants,--to me plants are no less than men. Both are to us only subjects for untiring investigation."

"I cannot think that of Möllner," said Elsa softly to herself.

The botanist shrugged his shoulders compassionately and left her. When he rejoined his brethren, they accosted him with, "It is easy to see that you have not been here long, or you would not try to preach reason into Elsa Herbert. Who could make a woman understand such things?" And there was a burst of laughter, in which Hilsborn was the only one who did not join. He was never disposed to sneer. Although he himself could not overcome his dislike for Elsa, he was too amiable to put it into words.

"But, really, for one's own sake it is best to make an attempt at least to enlighten the ignorant," the botanist replied, when thus attacked. "It is impossible to listen in silence to such nonsense."

"Then, Fräulein Elsa, you consider it a blessed lot to be devoured by cows," said a young private tutor, who had but just thrown off his student's gown.

Elsa was quite happy. She had not received so much attention for a long time. It was the consequence of her originality. How excellent, too, her spirits were to-day! What a pity that Möllner was not present to witness her triumph!

"Yes," she said gaily, "whatever is as perishable as a flower cannot die a more charming death than----"

"In a cow's mouth," laughed the skeptic. "It is unfortunate that Fechner had not conceived this poetic idea before he wrote his 'Nanna.'"

"Oh, you may ridicule anything in that way, if you choose to do so," said Elsa.

"Do not vex our kind Elsa," Angelika here interrupted the discussion, throwing her fair round arm around the other's thin shoulders. "Elsa dear, give me your nosegay."

"There, put it on your brother's writing-table," Elsa whispered in her ear.

Angelika looked at her with compassion. "I will do what you ask, Elsa, but you know he does not care much for plucked flowers."

"But perhaps he will value them when he knows that they were plucked by the faithful hand of such a friend as I."

Angelika took the bouquet, and said hesitatingly, "I hope he will not be vexed,--he does not like to have anything placed upon his writing-table,--but I will try."

Hastily, as usual, Moritz came running through the garden just as Angelika was bending over Elsa. She turned, and found her husband's sparkling black eyes resting upon her.

"Moritz," she cried in delight, "have you come at last?"

"Yes, my darling. I had another patient to see; but now I am free to stay with you until to-morrow at eight,--twelve whole hours. Is not that fine?"

"Fine indeed!" repeated Angelika, and poor Elsa listened to these loving speeches, longing for the time when such happiness should be hers.

"Come," said old Heim, plucking Moritz by the sleeve, "we cannot live upon your pretty speeches to your wife, and they may spoil our appetites. Your mamma begs you to play the part of host at supper."

"Come, Angelika," said Moritz, drawing Angelika's arm through his own. He never took any other woman than his wife to supper.

This was a trying moment for Elsa, for it was her usual fate to be left sitting still when supper was ready or a dance was in prospect. She must either join herself to some other unfortunate, similarly neglected, or perhaps be offered a left arm by some good-natured man already provided with a lady upon his right. Ah, her knight, her Lohengrün, was not there, he who would one day rescue her forever from this solitude. Where was he? Why did he not come? And in her distress she turned to one of the gentlemen who had just finished smoking and was approaching the circle of ladies. "Do you not know where Professor Möllner is?"

The gentleman was a young assistant surgeon, whom Moritz had taken to the village with him that afternoon. The latter, as he passed, whispered in his ear, "Do not tell."

The young man looked confused, and just then Herbert approached and said maliciously, "You were in Hochstetten this afternoon, where Professor Möllner played his usual part of good Samaritan? I heard you telling Hilsborn about it,--pray favour us too with the interesting story."

He laid his hand, as if unconsciously, upon his sister's shoulder, but its heavy pressure, told her that it was not done either unconsciously or kindly.

"We all know very well that Möllner never allows an insult to pass unpunished," said Hilsborn, "and you should know it, Herr Herbert, better than any of us."

"True, I have had occasion to be convinced of the interest that Möllner takes in Fräulein von Hartwich, although it is by no means so dangerous to correct an erring professor as an enraged mob."

"What? what is it?" ran from mouth to mouth, and the company drew together in a large group.

"Permit me," said Moritz in a loud voice to Herbert, "to be the interpreter of my brother-in-law's conduct, as I certainly understand it better than a stranger. The truth is, the Hartwich was insulted by a Hochstetten mob, and my brother-in-law interfered to prevent her from receiving personal injury."

"Ah," said Herbert, as if he were comprehending it all for the first time, "this, then, was the generous motive that took your brother two miles from town to that retired village?"

"I myself have never yet presumed to cross-examine my brother-in-law as to his motives,--I leave the bold undertaking to you," replied Moritz, challenging Herbert with his keen glance.

"What can have happened there?"

"What did the Hartwich do? A whole village certainly does not rise against a private individual without some cause."

"This Hartwich must be a dreadful person!" Such were the remarks made by one and another.

"Gentlemen, let me pray you to come to supper," said the Staatsräthin, who was evidently embarrassed.

But her invitation was unheeded. All the ladies and several gentlemen had, like hungry wolves, had a taste of the interesting subject, and they were not to be tempted by the promise of other food. There was no end to their amazement and conjectures. To be sure, it was impossible to express before Möllner's relatives all that was thought, but they could gain some information by their questions.

They could not understand how Professor Möllner could befriend such a person. It was no wonder that public opinion was so opposed to her.

"Yes," said Elsa, "Christian love should be shown to every sinner, but this woman puts our sex in such a light that really one blushes at being a woman. I can say, with Gretchen, that humanity is dear to me, but this Hartwich displays such shamelessness, such vulgarity of mind, that it becomes the duty of those possessed of any sensibility to suppress all compassion and to regard her with abhorrence."

"Tell me, then, Fräulein Elsa," Hilsborn here interrupted her, "what becomes of your former assertion that the cause of the despised and neglected should always be espoused by the true Christian, as in the case of your field-flowers?"

Elsa blushed, and stroked back her curls.

"But, my dear friend," remarked the botanist, "the Hartwich is not a field-flower."

"Certainly not one that cows can eat, for she is poisonous," said Herbert.

"Oh, there are reptiles that feed on hemlock," said old Heim with irritation. "But, whether she be hemlock or belladonna, we all know that both are medicinal, and she might perhaps be useful as an antidote to the affectation and hypocrisy that infect the feminine world of to-day, producing bigotry, malice, and all sorts of moral diseases."

"That was going almost too far," Moritz whispered to the old man, who passed him grumbling thus, with his hands clasped behind him. "I cannot abuse her any more, for Johannes's sake, but I do wish the devil had her rather than Johannes should have her!"

Heim looked at him and contracted his white, bushy eyebrows. "To that nonsense all I say is, we will talk about it at some future time."

The Staatsräthin approached. "Uncle Heim, you are blinded by your partiality. Convince us that this person is anything else than a brazen-faced claimant for notoriety, and God knows what besides,--convince us of this, And we will beg her pardon,--but, until then, we must be allowed to consider any intercourse with her, on my son's part, as a misfortune. Now give me your arm; we must go to supper."

"Yes, let us go. I am tired, and shall be glad of something to eat," said the old gentleman, conducting the Staatsräthin into the house, where the table was laid.

The others followed, and Elsa fluttered after them like the last swallow of autumn. They all entered the house by the large door opening upon the garden. Directly opposite was the door leading into the street. They began, laughing and talking, to ascend the stairs to the dining-room, when a carriage drove up. The Staatsräthin, who led the way, stopped and listened intently. It might be Johannes.

The door was at that instant thrown open, and he appeared,--but not alone. There was a lady leaning on his arm.

A murmur of surprise was heard.

Johannes was quite as much astonished at unexpectedly encountering such an assemblage as the guests were at his entrance with a veiled lady, who was evidently embarrassed and desirous to withdraw when she saw so many people. But Johannes detained her. "I pray you, remain," he said to her, "you have no cause for alarm."

The Staatsräthin leaned heavily upon Heim's arm, her knees trembled under her.

"Compose yourself," the old man whispered in her ear. "Submit to the inevitable,--remember that your son is master of the house."

"I shall not forget it," she replied softly, yet with bitterness.

In the mean time, Johannes had reached the staircase with the evidently reluctant Ernestine. "My dear mother," he said, looking up at her with a face radiant with pleasure, "I bring you another guest."

The Staatsräthin descended a couple of stairs with the air of one compelled to receive a guest whose visit she regards as anything but welcome.

"Fräulein von Hartwich," said Johannes, presenting her at once to his mother and his assembled friends, "has been persuaded by me to seek an asylum for this night beneath our roof, as her uncle is absent from home, leaving her alone and defenceless, the object of a low, and brutal conspiracy."

"You are welcome, Fräulein von Hartwich," said the Staatsräthin with cold courtesy, without offering Ernestine her hand, or relieving her embarrassment in any way. "Let me entreat you to share our simple meal. Unfortunately, we can postpone it no longer, as we have already been obliged to wait some time for my son."

And, without another word to Ernestine, she led the way with Heim to the dining-room.

Ernestine's heart throbbed. What a reception was this! To what a humiliation had she exposed herself! Was not running the gauntlet here a thousand times worse than being stoned in the village by rude peasants? "Let me go," she said, taking her hand from Johannes's arm. "I feel that I am unwelcome to your mother."

"Ernestine," said Johannes, "you are my guest, and I will not let you go. Forgive my mother's cold reception. It is not meant for you, but for the distorted character of you that she has heard. Remain, and convince her that you are not what she thinks, and you will be treated by her like a daughter."

"Oh, my only friend, I obey you, but I do it with a heavy heart. It would have been better for you to let me go to old Leonhardt for a couple of days."

"How could you have gone to old Leonhardt?" Johannes interrupted her impatiently. "It would have been visited upon him if he had received you. And it was equally impossible for you to pass this night alone in the castle without your uncle. You must be content to remain under my protection. Is that so hard?"

"Oh, no," said Ernestine, with a grateful look,--"but the others!"

"I am sorry that we arrived just in the midst of this crowd. Everything would have gone well if we had not encountered them just upon the stairs. I would have taken you to my study, where no one goes,--you could have rested there until these people were gone and my mother had prepared your room for you. But, since they have seen you, you must not hide yourself like a criminal. There are some here who already wish you well, and many others whose regard you will soon win."

"I am far more afraid of these people than of the angry peasants," said Ernestine sorrowfully. "I am so tired."

"Poor child!" said Johannes kindly. "I know you are, but do it for my sake. Will you not? I shall be so glad to have you by my side, and so proud to show them all that you accept me as your friend."

"Well, then, I will do as you say," said Ernestine submissively, and she ascended the stairs with Johannes.

At the door of the supper-room she laid aside her hat and shawl, and he looked admiringly at her lovely pale face, with the noble intellectual brow and the large melancholy eyes, and at her tall slender figure. Who that saw her could withstand her? He was so proud of her!

As they entered, the guests stood around the table, awaiting him. The impression that she produced was an extraordinary one. It was as if one of those pale ethereal female figures in Kaulbach's "Battle of the Huns" had stepped out of the frame. No one had ever seen before such ideal and melancholy beauty in real life. In an instant all were silent, and gazed earnestly at the rare spectacle.

"By Jove! she's a dangerous woman," whispered Moritz to the Staatsräthin.

"Indeed she is!" she replied, scarcely able to take her eyes away from her. "My poor Johannes!"

"You don't see such a woman every day!" growled old Heim with pride. "Didn't I always say she would turn out a beauty?"

"The fact is, she is divine, and I shall love her dearly! Now say what you please," whispered Angelika. And, without waiting for a reply from either husband or mother, she flew across the room to Ernestine, who was standing overwhelmed with confusion, and cried, "Fräulein Ernestine, do you not remember me?"

Ernestine looked at her for a few seconds. "This must be little Angelika."

"Rightly guessed," said the young wife, and, standing on tiptoe, she pressed her rosy lips to Ernestine's delicate mouth.

Then Moritz approached, and said in his blunt, half-jesting way, "And I am the husband of this wife. My name is Kern, and I am besides, one of the monsters who had the courage to close the doors of our lecture-rooms in the face of a most beautiful woman."

Ernestine opened her eyes wide at this address, but, appreciating his humour, smiled gently.

"And indeed," he continued, "I do not repent in the least that I did so, now that I see you,--for not a student would ever have learned anything with such a comrade beside him."

Ernestine cast down her eyes, and, confused and ashamed, said not a word.

Moritz turned from her, and, with a paternal tap upon Johannes's shoulder, said to him, "Upon my word, you're not to blame for admiring her."

"Men are all alike," said the Staatsräthin in a whisper to Frau Professor Meibert. "My son-in-law, who never has a word to say to any woman but his wife, is already bewitched by her pretty face."

"Yes, and there is my husband making his way towards her," was the reply. "It must be admitted that she is quiet and modest."

"Still waters run deep!" said the Staatsräthin.

"Yes, that's true!" said the other with a nod.

"What do you think, Herr Professor," said Taun's wife to Herbert with an admiring glance at Ernestine, "of our having tableaux vivants next winter? Would it not be beautiful to have her with Angelika for the two Leonoras?"

"Better try Hercules and Omphale. Let the Hartwich be Omphale, and set Professor Möllner at the spinning-wheel. That would make a charming picture!" remarked Herbert.

"I hear you do not like her," said Frau Taun, "but now that I see her I cannot believe all the terrible things that are told of her. And Möllner, too, is not the man to seat himself at the spinning-wheel, even though she were Omphale,--your characters do not fit."

Herbert shrugged his shoulders.

"Now, my dear friend," Möllner's clear voice was heard saying, "allow me to make you more intimately acquainted with your friends and foes. Here is an old friend of yours, Professor Hilsborn. Do you not remember him?"

"We met once at a children's party," Hilsborn explained, "and you, with the rest of us, threw stones at a glass ball tossed up by a fountain. You came off from the contest victorious, and were the object of envy and hostility in consequence."

Ernestine blushed. "Oh, yes, now I know. You were that gentle, amiable boy,--the adopted son of Dr. Heim; but--where--where is Dr. Heim?"

"Here he is," said the old gentleman, fixing his penetrating eyes upon her. Ernestine held out her hand, but she could not endure his glance, and her own sought the ground.

"Oh, Father Heim,--may I still call you so?"

"That's right," cried the old man. "Then you have not forgotten?" And he laid his hand kindly upon her head.

"How could I forget you, when you saved my life?"

"Aha," said Heim to her so softly that no one else could hear what he was saying, "don't be afraid child,--I shall stand up for you before all these people, but to you yourself I must say that my heart bleeds for you, and that if I did not hope that all the stupid stuff with which your little head is crammed would one day give place to something infinitely better, I should almost repent patching it up in days gone by. Don't be vexed, my child, you don't like to hear this from me,--perhaps you may be better pleased to hear it from some one else. And now God bless your coming to this house!"

Ernestine made no reply, but his words produced a deep impression upon her. A tear trembled upon her eyelashes as she stood silently before him. Möllner then gave her his arm, and they all took their seats at table. Heim sat upon her right hand, and Taun and Hilsborn were opposite her. Then came Moritz with Angelika, and Herbert with Frau Taun, while the Staatsräthin sat upon Heim's right.

"Permit me to present my friend Professor Taun," said Möllner after they were seated.

"A friend!" added the latter to Möllner's words.

"He is one of those who voted in your favour," Möllner explained.

"I thank you," said Ernestine, "in the name of my sex."

"I cannot appropriate all your thanks to myself. They are due first to my dear friends Heim and Hilsborn, for they fought for you more bravely than I, to whom you were personally a stranger."

"Really, Father Heim, did you vote for me?" asked Ernestine in surprise.

"Well, yes," grumbled Heim, vexed that Taun had told of it. "The thing that you sent in was not bad, and I would have liked to open a wider field for your restless spirit, where you might find something better to do,"--here he sunk his bass voice to a whisper,--"than abuse God Almighty as a dog bays the moon, and make all honest folk your enemies with your atheistical stuff."

Ernestine started with a sudden shock. Was this, then, urged against her? She was amazed. Were there really people in these enlightened circles who could be shocked at her skepticism? Had Leuthold spoken falsely when he assured her that true culture was synonymous with emancipation from all religious prejudices? And who were the cultivated class, if these professors and their wives were not?

"Are you wounded by our friend's rough manner?" asked Taun, sorry for Ernestine's confusion. "You must know of old what a noble kernel is concealed within that rough shell."

"Who is talking about me?" Moritz cried out to them. "I am sure I heard 'noble Kern,' and that must be meant for me."

"Let those three alone, you vain fellow!" laughed Johannes, signing to him not to disturb their grave discourse.

Ernestine looked sadly at Helm. "Father Helm used to be kinder to me. He was never so harsh to me before."

"Of course not," said Helm in a low voice. "Then you were a thing made of blotting-paper, that a breath might have destroyed. We were content only to keep you alive, and, as is apt to be the case with delicate children, we forgot, in our anxiety about your physical health, to take due care of your mind."

"Well, well, never mind that now," said Taun. "I am not at all afraid that you will long fail of finding the right. Your writings give evidence of such uncommon talent that I should not wonder if you became the most learned woman of the age."

Ernestine's eyes flashed. She raised her head like a thirsty flower in a summer rain. "The most learned woman of the age!" The words touched her weak point, and penetrated the inner sanctuary of her ambition. Heim's harshness was forgotten. "How can you say this to me, in a century that has produced a Caroline Herschel and a Dorothea Rodde?"

Herbert, who from a distance had been hastening to the conversation, turned to Moritz and asked him in a low voice, "Who is Dorothea Rodde? Of course I have heard of Herschel's sister,--just because she was Herchel's sister,--but I know nothing of the other."

"Don't ask me," laughed Moritz. "I have too much to do to busy myself about the wonders worked by all the blue-stockings immortalized in the pages of trashy annuals."

Ernestine shot an angry glance at him. She had heard what was said, and she was indignant.

It was the drop too much when Angelika asked across the table, "Johannes, pray tell us--the gentlemen want to know--who Dorothea Rodde is."

Johannes shrugged his shoulders. "I do not know."

"What, you! Do you not know?" said Ernestine. "Is it possible! Does no one know that woman--the famous daughter of that great man Schläger? She only died in eighteen hundred and twenty-four, and is she forgotten already?"

"She cannot have materially advanced the cause of science," said Johannes, "or she would not have been forgotten."

"Such a rarely-endowed individual as this woman must, I should suppose, always be an object of scientific interest, even if she did not directly advance the cause of science itself. It must surely be interesting to physiologists, as well as to psychologists, that a woman has lived capable of learning all that Dorothea Rodde learned, even although she taught nothing. All cannot create. Many men have been held in high esteem for diligence alone. Besides, Dorothea would have achieved greatness if she had not committed the folly of marrying, thus arresting her scientific development in the bud and retiring entirely from public view. She buried herself alive, and the world is always ready to strew ashes upon a woman's coffin. Had she been a man, every one would have known that, when a boy of seventeen, he could speak all the dead and living languages, was thoroughly versed in chemistry, medicine, anatomy, and mineralogy, and in his eighteenth year, after a brilliant examination, received the degree of doctor of philosophy from the University of Göttingen! But it was only a girl who achieved all this thus early; and if the less envious time in which she studied acknowledged her superiority, the more prudent present ignores it all the more utterly."

A painful silence ensued. Every one was busied with his or her own thoughts. Every one felt confused. This beautiful, placid Ernestine had suddenly showed her claws!

The Staatsräthin silently laid down her knife and fork,--she had lost all desire to eat.

Johannes looked sadly at Ernestine, and gently shook his head. Herbert alone grew more cheerful as the rest seemed disturbed, and looked down the table at Elsa, who sat at the other end, lost in melancholy reverie as she drew several flowers and grasses out of the large vase on the table, intending, like Ophelia, to deck herself with them; but, alas, Hamlet had no eyes for her sweet madness!

"May I request you to present me to the lady?" Herbert asked Johannes.

"Herr Professor Herbert," said the latter, and added with emphasis, "your bitterest opponent!"

Ernestine bowed slightly and looked coldly at Herbert.

"Permit me," he began sneeringly, "to beg you to inform me, Fräulein von Hartwich,--I ask solely for instruction in the matter,--what possible scientific interest the fact that a woman spoke several languages--she could hardly have spoken all, as you declared--could possess."

"Yes, I too am curious upon that point!" cried Moritz.

Ernestine looked gravely from one to the other. "I am quite ready to explain it to you. I should not, indeed, have ventured to do so if you had not asked me, for it would have seemed to me insulting to suppose that you could need any such explanation."

"That shot told," Moritz remarked comically.

"We are foes, gentlemen, and I am bent upon victory," said Ernestine. "I think the facility of acquisition shown by Dorothea Rodde is certainly as significant a fact in natural history as any example of extraordinary instinct in animals, for which zoologists search so untiringly. Or is the natural history of women less interesting than that of the ape?"

"We are not used to compare or to speak of women thus," Möllner interposed.

"Then, if you really accord us an equality with men in the scale of creation, Dorothea's eminent talent must certainly be of scientific interest, because it must assist in the investigation of the relative weight of the masculine and feminine brain,--a point not yet solved, the social importance of which is not recognized, or it would not be treated with such frivolous indifference. I, gentlemen, am convinced that the great contest for the emancipation of woman can be settled only through physiology, since that alone can prove whether the material conditions of the thinking mechanism are equal in men and women; and, if they are, who would deny a woman the right to assert her independence of man, even in the world of the intellect?"

"But we have not yet reached this point," said Johannes. "This equality has not yet been proved."

"Nor has the contrary," said Ernestine. "Therefore it seems to me that it would be well worth while for physiology to come to the aid of history, and test the material brain of famous women."

"And what end would that serve?"

"Can you ask that question seriously? Would not the result of such investigations, if it were favourable to women, strike a blow at our present social arrangements in the relations of the sexes? And would not the rendering such an aid to true social harmony be a triumph for physiology, of which it might well be proud?"

"It would be all very well," said Moritz, "if the whole question were worth the trouble."

"Of course it is not worth it for you, but it is for us. What do men care about the position of woman,--her capacity or her incapacity? If your wives fill their position,--that is, if they are your obedient servants, have sufficient capacity for cooking, and can bring up your children,--all is as it should be, as far as you are concerned, and the most important problem of mankind, in the social system, is solved to your satisfaction."

A unanimous murmur arose at this accusation, but Ernestine was now greatly excited, and she continued, "It was the pain I felt at this narrow-minded indifference that led me to devote myself to natural science. I will do what I can to induce scientific men to turn their attention in this direction. Do not smile: even if I can do nothing for this cause myself, I would cheerfully dedicate my existence to arousing the interest of others in the subject. If I can prevail upon some less scrupulous university to afford me an opportunity for pursuing the requisite anatomical and physiological studies, these physical and psychical investigations shall be the sole occupation of my life."

"But, Fräulein von Hartwich," said Johannes seriously, "what would you discover that could further your desires? We have proved conclusively that the feminine brain absolutely weighs less than the masculine, and----"

"Have you proved that superiority depends only upon weight?"

"Not precisely, but it certainly does in most instances."

"In most instances? but if it is not proved to do so in all, the question is far from settled. It is true that Byron, Cuvier, and others had remarkably weighty brains, but, on the other hand, the brains of certain philosophers, as, for example, Hermann and Hausmann, weighed less than the ordinary feminine brain. We are then led to suspect that superiority depends upon the relation of the brain to the rest of the body,--perhaps upon the relation of different portions of the brain to each other, or the quantity of the gray matter. The only sure acquisition that physiology may be able to boast in this matter is that the relative weight of the feminine is not lighter than that of the masculine brain." Her eyes glowed with enthusiasm. "Oh, how gladly would I die if I could only succeed in casting a ray of light upon this chaos!"

"But, Fräulein von Hartwich," Herbert began with an ex cathedrâ air, "as woman is in all respects weaker and more delicate than man, is it not natural that her brain also should be smaller and lighter, rendering her incapable of as great intellectual exertion?"

"But, Herr Professor," replied Ernestine with a slight smile, "I have just said that superiority depended upon the relative, not the absolute, weight. Were it otherwise, the largest and strongest man would be the wisest, and you, sir, would have less ability than any one present, for you are the smallest man here."

Again there was an embarrassed silence. Many could scarcely suppress their laughter as they saw the angry look of the little man. Others found the scene painful to witness. Such conduct on the part of a lady was unprecedented in the annals of professorial gatherings, and, although those who were acquainted with Ernestine found her behaviour perfectly natural from her standpoint, strangers to her were inexpressibly shocked,--none more so than the Staatsräthin, to whom the girl's every word was like acid to an open wound.

It was the old story over again. She was unlike the others, and, without meaning it, frightened them all away. Wherever she went, the curse of eccentricity attached to her. No one shared her interests,--she had nothing in common with any one,--she was, and must continue to be, alone! Even Johannes grew thoughtful and silent. She timidly sought his eye, but he did not look at her.

Elsa, although she had no public, was still playing Ophelia, and was pondering upon the sweetness of the service she could render if it were only asked of her. Ah, no one wanted to see how charmingly she could obey. And she softly hummed to herself, in English, Ophelia's words,