In school, in spite of the difficulties of irregular verbs, Harry seems to have held his own, and to have soon attracted the especial attention of the director. The chief selected for the lycée at Düsseldorf had happened to be a Roman Catholic abbé of decidedly Voltairian views on most subjects, and attracted by the boy and becoming acquainted with his family, many a talk did Abbé Schallmayer have with Frau Heine over the undoubted gifts and the delightful imperfections of her son. It may possibly have been altogether simple interest in his bright young pupil, or perhaps Frau Heine, pretty still, and charming always, was herself an attraction to the schoolmaster, but certain it is, whether a private taste for pretty women or a genuine pedagogic enthusiasm prompted his frequent calls, our abbé was a constant visitor at Samson Heine’s, and Harry and Harry’s future a never-failing theme for conversation. What was the boy to be? There was no room for much speculation if he were to remain a Jew--that path was narrow, if not straight, and admitted of small range of choice along its level line of commerce. Betty, we know, was no staunch Jewess, and had her small personal ambitions to boot, so such opposition as there was to the abbé’s plainly given counsel to make a Catholic of the boy, and give him his chance, came probably from the stolid, steady-going father, to whom custom spoke in echoes resonant enough to deaden the muffled tones of religion. No question, however, of sentiment or sacrifice was permitted to complicate, or elevate, the question; no sense of voluntary renunciation was suggested to the boy; no choice between the life and good, and the death and evil, between conscience and compromise, was presented to him. On the broadly comprehensive grounds that Judaism and trade had been good enough for the father, trade and Judaism must be good enough for the son--the matter was decided.