"Yes, yes!" the kindly voice continued. "A superb fellow! I congratulate you upon such a son--not a question missed--not one! And answered with such ease and confidence, yet without the slightest particle of conceit. Deuce take it!--I wish I had married and had such a son. Come," he said, turning to a boy of about fourteen years of age, who had arrived with him, "perhaps you may one day be such another,--keep your eyes steadily upon Johannes. Permit me, dear madam, to present to you the son of my late friend, Ferdinand Hilsborn. He lost his mother a few months ago, and is now my adopted son." The Staatsräthin held out her hand to the boy, and said with emotion, "Although I never knew your mother, it pains me deeply to know that she left this world before she could enjoy such a moment as your adopted father has just given me by his tidings." The gentle boy's eyes filled with tears as she spoke. "Only think, my dear friends," said the Staatsräthin, turning to the company, "Johannes never told me that this was his examination-day, that he might surprise me. I only learned it this afternoon from a few thoughtless words of my brother's. Our kind Geheimrath Heim has just brought me the tidings of his promotion." The guests, with sympathy and congratulations, crowded around the proud mother, whose heart was too full to do anything but reply mechanically to their kind speeches. "But, dear Frau Möllner," a Frau Landräthin remarked maliciously, "was it not a little strange that your Johannes should not have told you of his examination-day?--certainly a mother has a sacred right to share such hours with her son." "When a mother's claims are held as sacred as are mine by my son," replied the Staatsräthin, with dignified composure, "he may well be left to do as seems to him best in such a matter. He wished to spare me hours of anxiety; and I thank him." "The woman is blindly devoted to her son," the Landräthin whispered to a friend. "She is growing perfectly childish with maternal vanity," remarked another. "But how can any one as wealthy as the Staatsräthin allow her son to study?" said the Landräthin. "Yes, yes!" several others joined in, "he certainly need never earn his living in such a way. Why did she not buy him a commission? 'Tis too bad for such a handsome young man!" "Yes, yes!" the old Geheimrath called out to the ladies, as if he had heard only their last words, "Johannes is a man,--a man, although hardly twenty years old! Only such a mother could have such a son!" And he laid his hand kindly upon the Staatsräthin's arm. "I wish every woman, left alone in the world, had such a friend as you are," she said, holding out her hand to him gratefully. "You are the best legacy left me by my dear husband. But where is Johannes? Why did he not come with you?"