"That is one of your jokes, which you must not let Benno hear: he wants to be a teacher." "I think I will get that notion out of his head." "Do not do so. Why should he not be a teacher if he has a liking for it, and talent enough? I do not know anything more delightful than to teach any one something which I believe to be good and useful to him. And then it is a good position for one in Benno's circumstances. I have heard it said that when one makes no great pretensions, he can soon secure a modest sufficiency. My father, it is true, has other views: he would like Benno to be a physician or naturalist. But these are expensive professions to learn; and although my father always takes a hopeful view--but I am not sure that he always does." Paula bent her head over her sketching-board, and went on with her drawing more assiduously than ever; but I saw that once or twice she raised her handkerchief to her eyes. It gave me pain to see it. I knew what anxiety, and that too well-founded, Paula felt for her father's health, whom she loved devotedly. "Fräulein Paula," I said. She did not correct me this time--perhaps did not hear me. "Fräulein Paula," I said again, "you must not cherish such gloomy thoughts. Your father is not so ill: and then you would not believe what a race the Zehrens are. Herr von Zehren used to call the steuerrath a weakling, and yet he might take an undisputed place among those who account themselves robust men; but Herr von Zehren himself was a man of steel, and yet he once told me that his youngest brother was a match for two like him. And you see a strong constitution is everything, Doctor Snellius says, and so I say too." "To be sure, if _you_ say so----" Paula looked up, and a melancholy smile played about her beautiful lips. "You mean that a miserable scarecrow, such as I sit here, has no business to be talking about strength?" "O no; I know how strong you were before you were ill; and how soon you would be strong again, if you would take proper care of yourself, which you do not always do. For example, you ought never to be sitting here without some wrappings, and you have let the coverlid fall off your lap; but----" "But----?" said I, obediently drawing up the coverlid over my knees. "I mean that it is not quite right to say that a strong constitution is everything. Kurt there is certainly the strongest of the boys, and yet Oscar can read, write, and cipher as well as he, though Kurt is nine years old, and Oscar only seven." "But you see Oscar is your favorite." "That is not kind of you," Paula said. She said it gently and pleasantly, without a trace of offence, and yet I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I felt as though I had struck a defenceless child.