doubt that distresses us--those who wish only our happiness, and do not find it in the fulfilment of their own wishes, in the gratification of their own desires. And yet, this is the case with my relatives. Can I open my heart to them? Must I not always fear to offend them if I speak what I think? Do they care for my wishes? Do they not rather distress me with their plans and suggestions, which make the blood curdle in my veins? To be sure, my dear old papa--he would not abandon me if matters came to the worst; but, great Heavens, is it not bad enough to have to fear a worst? Ah, Mary, I cannot tell you how strange, how painful even the spirit that reigns in this house is to me; how I long to be back at school, where, if the outer world was closed to us, a fairer and a richer world was open to us in our dreams, and especially in our cordial friendship! Here I have no one whom I could admit into this inner world, no one but a boy, who, of course, cannot understand me, and a man whom I could love if he were my brother, but from whom I am parted by an impassable gulf. You know of whom I speak. I will not conceal from you that of late I have become more deeply interested in this man than I should ever have thought possible--a confession which may challenge your scorn, but which I owe to you, notwithstanding, from the sacred nature of our covenant. He stands alone in the world like yourself; his mother he has never known; his father died years ago, and he never had brother or sister. He is quite young yet, but great hearts live fast in a little while, and he must have seen and suffered much. There is a shadow of melancholy on his brow, and in his large, dark blue eyes, which is irresistibly touching to me; at times his lips quiver with pain, so that I would give anything if I could go up to him and say: Tell me what pains you, perhaps I can help you, and if I cannot do that, I can at least sympathize with you. You know, dear Mary, that I am a thoroughbred aristocrat, and that I have an innate antipathy to all that is common and plebeian. We have both of us grown up in the conviction that the lower classes lack not merely the nobility of birth, but also the nobility of thought, and that we cannot count, in them, upon an appreciation of what is best and highest in the world. I must tell you now that I have changed my views in this respect somewhat since I have come back to Grenwitz; that I have at least found how this rule also has its exceptions. Stein is such an exception. I never yet heard a word from his lips that would betray the plebeian, but, on the contrary, many that were spoken from my soul, and that found a loud echo in my heart. He speaks with more music in his voice than I ever heard before, so that I often try for hours afterwards to recall to my mind the manner and modulation with which he said one or the other thing. There is an indescribable charm for me in his sweet, melodious voice.