The looks that were now fastened upon Ernestine were more piercing and burning, she thought, than the sun's rays. Those people never dreamed that the quiet little creature standing before them was possessed of a goal so delicate in its organization, so finely strung, that every breath of contempt that swept across it created a shrill discord, a painful confusion; they only looked with the careless disapproval, which would have been all very well with ordinary children, at the straight, black, dishevelled hair, the sunken cheeks, the wizened, sharp features of the pale face, the deep dark eyes, with their shy, uncertain glances, the lips tightly closed in embarrassment, and last, the emaciated figure in its faded short dress, and the long, narrow feet and hands. In the minds of most, an ugly exterior excites more disgust than sympathy; and, to excuse this feeling to one's self, one is apt to declare that the child or person in question has an "unpleasant expression," thus hinting at moral responsibility in the matter of the exterior, as if it were the result of an ugliness of soul which would, in a measure, excuse one's disgust. This was the case with all who were now looking at this strange child. It seemed as though they were drinking in with their eyes the poison that had wasted Ernestine's little body,--the poison of hatred which her being had imbibed from her father and her unnatural surroundings, and as if this poison reacted from them upon herself. The little girl felt this instinctively without comprehending it, and as she met, one after another, those loveless glances, it was as though a wound in her flesh were ruthlessly probed. She could not understand what the ladies whispered to each other in French, but their tones intimated displeasure and contempt. She suddenly saw herself as in a mirror through their eyes, and she saw, what she had never seen before, that she was very ugly and awkward,--that she was meanly dressed; and shame for her poor innocent self flushed her cheeks crimson. In that single minute she ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,--that fruit which has driven thousands, sooner or later, from the Eden of childlike unconsciousness. She had entered upon that stage of life where a human being is self-accused for being unloved, unsought,--despises herself because others despise her,--finds herself ugly because she gives pleasure to none. Hitherto, whatever she had suffered, she had been at peace with herself; now she was at enmity with herself and the world. She felt suffocated; everything swam before her sight, and hot tears gushed from her eyes. Just then a tall, stately woman came out of the drawing-room. "Frau Staatsräthin," one of the ladies called to her in a tone of contempt, "a new guest has arrived!"