In the background of the large room are two heavy wooden closed bedsteads, looking more like huge chests of drawers than any other modern piece of furniture, in which repose Olympia and her husband. For this, the best and only good room in the house, is the lady's bower and bedchamber. The two little damp rooms below serve, the one as a kitchen, and the other as the family refectory. Above, in the huge roof, two little narrow–windowed chambers held the pallet beds of Theodora and Emilio; and above these, squeezed into the narrowing roof, another cell, with its eye–like window, peering out under the projecting eaves of the gable, afforded a dormitory for Barbara of the intolerable morals. Something like this, I fancy, must have been that quiet home, and the way of life in that pine–wood furnished low–roofed chamber, where the daily lessons occupied the morning; and where, in the evening, when the good doctor had returned from his work, some one or two of those "viri boni," for whose sake a residence at Schweinfurth was agreeable,—learned Dominus Johannes Cremer, or learned Magister Andreas Roser, the schoolmaster,—fortis Gyas, fortisque Cloanthus,—grave men in stiff ruffles, large dark–coloured cloaks, and flat wide hats, which they retained as they sat in the somewhat bleak room,—would come in and hold sober discourse in Latin—(Olympia did not understand German)—on the last new controversial work of some shining light, on the probability of the provisions of the Interim being enforced, on the certainty of the doctrine of election, or the uncertainty of the movements of the Emperor, or other such topics; and finish the evening by singing together one of Olympia's Greek Psalms, set to music by her husband; wherein one may fancy that the pure Italian soprano of Olympia, the childish treble of the two children, and the deep voices of the musical German guests, as they joined in the sonorous Greek syllables, under the guidance of Grünthler's bâton, produced a performance altogether _sui generis_. And all is well, if only that slippery ancilla, Barbara, had not taken the opportunity of running out into the street, and left perchance the door on the latch. [Sidenote: SCHOOLS A PREACHER.] A pale life, vulgar cares, and monotonous duties for our Court–muse, so long accustomed to the flattering homage of a brilliant courtier circle in the splendid Ferrara saloons, glittering with gilding, and glowing with the colours of Dosso Dossi! The contrast must have presented itself sometimes to Olympia's mind; but the recollection was more calculated to produce a contented smile than a sigh of regret. It is a noticeable development of a richly endowed moral nature,—this change of one, who seemed so wholly and perfectly made and fitted for the element in which she then moved, into a being at least as thoroughly adapted to a life so violently contrasted to it in all ways.