"Look, Herr Professor," remarked young Leonhardt gaily, "those stupid birds are priding themselves upon having maintained their place. See with what haughty disdain they are regarding you. They evidently think that they have compelled you to turn aside for them! It is always the way. Wisdom vacates the path shared with stupidity, and the latter swells with the pride of an imagined victory." Johannes smiled. "What puts these little moral sentiments into your head, my dear Walter? Are you about to compose a new primer for your school?" "It really would not be a bad idea among such people as these!" said Walter, as he shook hands with Möllner. Möllner sat down upon the bench before the house and took Käthchen upon his knee. "Would not you like, Käthchen, to have Herr Walter make you a new primer?" "It might be a capital undertaking, Walter," remarked Herr Leonhardt. "We must not despise small opportunities, since larger ones are denied us." "Yes, father," laughed the light-hearted young fellow, "but, if my primer is to succeed here, I must have for the letter H, "'H stands for Hartwich, good Christians must know, She's a terrible witch, who will work them all woe.'" Herr Leonhardt made a sign to the thoughtless speaker, who looked in alarm at Möllner, who preserved a gloomy silence. "You must not laugh at the lady at the castle," said Käthchen, leaning her pale little face against Johannes' throbbing heart. "My mother complained to-day that I had grown as pale and ugly as the Fräulein, and she prayed the Lord to break the spell that the Fräulein had laid upon me. It made me so sorry, for she cannot help my being so pale. She is so good and kind,--how could she bewitch me?" Johannes silently drew the child closer to him. "To be sure, she is good and kind, and would not harm any one," said Herr Leonhardt;--but his son interposed, with youthful exaggeration, "She is a saint,--far too holy for these ignorant people to be permitted to kiss her footprints as she passes!" Johannes pressed his bearded lips upon the child's head, but did not speak. "Herr Professor, where are your thoughts?" asked Leonhardt anxiously, laying his hand gently upon Johannes' shoulder. "With the subject of your conversation, dear friend. It gives me no rest. It is now four weeks since I have seen her. I would not seek her again until I had collected all the material that was necessary to convict her uncle, for I must be prepared for the most determined opposition on his part to my visits. To-day, through my kind old friend Heim, I have discovered a clue to Gleissert's rascalities, and when I compare the intelligence that I have received with the fact of which you informed me, that all his letters are addressed to Unkenheim, I think I have a terrible weapon against him in my possession. And yet,--yet I do not know whether I ought to warn Ernestine by letter or to go to her myself. Will not,--must not the sight of me be painful to her?"