"Well, yes," grumbled Heim, vexed that Taun had told of it. "The thing that you sent in was not bad, and I would have liked to open a wider field for your restless spirit, where you might find something better to do,"--here he sunk his bass voice to a whisper,--"than abuse God Almighty as a dog bays the moon, and make all honest folk your enemies with your atheistical stuff." Ernestine started with a sudden shock. Was this, then, urged against her? She was amazed. Were there really people in these enlightened circles who could be shocked at her skepticism? Had Leuthold spoken falsely when he assured her that true culture was synonymous with emancipation from all religious prejudices? And who were the cultivated class, if these professors and their wives were not? "Are you wounded by our friend's rough manner?" asked Taun, sorry for Ernestine's confusion. "You must know of old what a noble kernel is concealed within that rough shell." "Who is talking about me?" Moritz cried out to them. "I am sure I heard 'noble Kern,' and that must be meant for me." "Let those three alone, you vain fellow!" laughed Johannes, signing to him not to disturb their grave discourse. Ernestine looked sadly at Helm. "Father Helm used to be kinder to me. He was never so harsh to me before." "Of course not," said Helm in a low voice. "Then you were a thing made of blotting-paper, that a breath might have destroyed. We were content only to keep you alive, and, as is apt to be the case with delicate children, we forgot, in our anxiety about your physical health, to take due care of your mind." "Well, well, never mind that now," said Taun. "I am not at all afraid that you will long fail of finding the right. Your writings give evidence of such uncommon talent that I should not wonder if you became the most learned woman of the age." Ernestine's eyes flashed. She raised her head like a thirsty flower in a summer rain. "The most learned woman of the age!" The words touched her weak point, and penetrated the inner sanctuary of her ambition. Heim's harshness was forgotten. "How can you say this to me, in a century that has produced a Caroline Herschel and a Dorothea Rodde?" Herbert, who from a distance had been hastening to the conversation, turned to Moritz and asked him in a low voice, "Who is Dorothea Rodde? Of course I have heard of Herschel's sister,--just because she was Herchel's sister,--but I know nothing of the other." "Don't ask me," laughed Moritz. "I have too much to do to busy myself about the wonders worked by all the blue-stockings immortalized in the pages of trashy annuals." Ernestine shot an angry glance at him. She had heard what was said, and she was indignant. It was the drop too much when Angelika asked across the table, "Johannes, pray tell us--the gentlemen want to know--who Dorothea Rodde is." Johannes shrugged his shoulders. "I do not know."