self-imposed chains of false ambition? Oh, Ernestine, do not let me implore you further; say only one word,--to whom will you belong,--to your uncle, or to me?" "To myself, for no human being can belong to any other!" And her look at Johannes was almost one of aversion. "Yes, now I see that you are your mother's' son. I see her stern features, I hear her voice of remonstrance, and I see myself between you,--a creature without will,--no longer capable of independent thought or feeling, still less of rendering any service to the world. Am I to cast aside like a garment what has been the guiding hope of my life,--my dream by night and day,--and go to your mother begging for forgiveness and indulgence, excusing myself like a child, and promising future improvement, that I may humbly receive from her cold lips the kiss of condescending pardon? Again and again, No! What right has your mother to regard me as a criminal, and to attempt to improve me? Whom have I injured? What law of propriety have I infringed, that she should treat me like some noxious thing in the world? I have lived in calm retirement, asking for no happiness but that of labour. Why should she insist upon thrusting another kind of happiness upon me, and blame me for not considering it as such? Did I seek her out? Was it not against my will, and only in accordance with your earnest entreaties, that I accompanied you to her house? Why should she drive me from it like an intruder, and impose upon me conditions of a return that I did not desire? Oh, if you, noble and true as I once thought you, had loved me, not as you thought I ought to be, but as I am, with all my faults and eccentricities, I would have striven for your sake to become the most perfect woman in the world. And if you had said to me, 'Be my companion,--I will help you to vindicate the honour of your sex, whatever is sacred to you shall be so to me also,'--if you had thus acknowledged my individuality, and had intrusted your happiness, your honour, to my keeping, without other warranty than the dictates of your own heart, I would have bowed in reverence to a love so powerful,--I would gladly have sacrificed my freedom to you,--to please you, I would have performed the hardest task of all--humiliated myself before your haughty mother! But when you come to me thus,--only her echo,--when you make it the foundation of our happiness that I should be what she chooses, and try to assure yourself at the outset that I will submit to all your requirements, that you may run no risk from such a self-willed creature,--all this shows me that she has separated us utterly. I have lost you, and all that you have given me is the knowledge that I have no place in this world, and that I am miserable!" Johannes stood pale and mute before her, but his pure conscience shone in his steady eyes. Ernestine did not venture to look at him. With trembling hands she plucked to pieces a twig that she had just broken from a bush at her side.