Johannes continued. "What if I were come to prove that you are not?" Ernestine looked sullenly at him. "I certainly cannot answer you here; but your depreciation of me forces me to ask whether you have read anything that I have written, and so have come to form so poor an opinion of my abilities?" "On the contrary, Fräulein Hartwich, your essay upon Reflex Motion is full of talent, and your article upon the Capacity of the Eye for Stereoscopic Vision has won the prize." Ernestina started. Her face flushed, her eyes sparkled. "Why have you waited until now to tell me? My essay won the prize! Do I wake, or am I dreaming? Oh, how can I thank you for this intelligence? I have no words. But let your reward be the consciousness that you have given me the greatest happiness my life has ever known! And do not attempt to malign to me the man to whose disinterested care for my education I owe it." "Poor girl, if this is your greatest happiness! You are betrayed indeed, if you owe no other enjoyment to your uncle!" "Oh, sir, what can there be beyond fame and honour?" Johannes looked gravely at her. "Something of which your uncle has never told you." In the flush of her gratified ambition, Ernestine did not hear him. She walked a few steps to and fro, then seated herself again, and said with a beating heart, "Perhaps you also bring the answer to my application for admission to the lectures at the University." "I do, but it has been rejected decidedly, Fräulein Hartwich." Ernestine's arms dropped at her sides. "Rejected! Was it known, when they rejected it, that the prize essay was mine?" "It was." Ernestine stood for one moment as if stunned. At last she began slowly and dejectedly, "Ah, I understand it all! the gentlemen took the author of that treatise for a man, and awarded it the prize, but my application was refused because I am so unfortunate as to be a woman. It is only natural, why should a woman be permitted to vie with the lords of creation?" "Your disappointment makes you unjust," said Johannes. "Your essay received the prize because it accomplished what it aimed at. The application of the woman was rejected because in the University no woman can accomplish what should be her aim." "How can you prove that?" asked Ernestine with bitterness. "Because she has deserted the sphere which nature has assigned her, and cannot fulfil the requirements of the one that she has selected for herself." "You, then, are one of my opponents?" "I am, Fräulein Hartwich." "Oh, I am sorry!" "Why? Of what consequence can the opinion of a stranger be to you?" Ernestine looked down. "The impression that you make upon me, sir, is such that it pains me to find that you are one of those narrow-minded persons who deny to women the possession of any but the humblest ability." "You are mistaken, I think them, and especially your self, possessed of very great ability."