"And I will give you an opportunity at once. I am not contented with myself either. I too--for the sake of others, to please papa and mamma who seemed greatly to wish it--have been kinder to somebody than at heart I felt justified in being, and I must henceforth change my conduct towards him." "He has proposed to you?" "Proposed? To me?" A scornful smile played round her exquisite lips. "I beg your pardon, dear Erna. He was so remarkably assiduous in his attentions to you yesterday. You admit yourself that you have been kinder to him than now you care to have been, and he strikes me as being one of those men who grasp the whole hand the moment you hold out your little finger to them. And moreover, I know that your parents encourage him much, and he is surely aware of that too. Thus my question was not wholly groundless; still, I beg your pardon." "And indeed you need it in this case, Uncle Bertram. Or, have I perhaps behaved so childishly that even a clever man like you could deem such a thing possible?" "No, no; pray, try to forget what I said without thinking, or take it for a proof that I was right, that I am neither so good nor so clever as you thought." The words sounded diffident, almost submissive, but his heart was swelling with proud delight, and the songsters perched above in the shady recesses of the big plantain tree seemed to have been silent till now, and to be then commencing all at once to twitter and sing and make sweetest melody; and from the terraces beneath there was wafted up to them in fragrant cloudlets the perfume of carnation and mignonette. What a beautiful, divinely beautiful morning it was! "Henceforth," said Erna, "we will be open to each other, and then such misunderstandings will not occur again. This one, truly, should make me blush. The Baron is the very last man in whom I could take the very slightest interest. I find nearly everything he says stupid and silly, and if a fairly good idea turns up, as it does every now and then, it is impossible to enjoy it, for the question is sure to obtrude itself: 'What nonsense will he talk next?' I am only now making his acquaintance; he, it is true, has been often here before, but in my absence; and in town, when he came, as he sometimes did, to see Aunt Lydia, I always avoided having to meet him." "You have met few young men yet?" "And those few have not made me anxious to meet any more." "This sounds very hard; but, to say the truth, you are not the first girl whom I have heard talk like this." "My only wonder is that all do not talk, or, at least, think like this. My own idea is, that men are naturally selfish, frivolous, and vain, and only become with advancing years good, and noble, and amiable, and this applies only to the few exceptions; for I suppose the bulk remain as they were." "Are you serious?"