When the little twins had got so far that they could speak the "r" plainly, and no longer played in the sand, and ran after Frau Nüssler all day long, saying, "Mother, what shall we do now?" then Frau Nüssler said to young Jochen that it was high time the children went to school; they must have a governess. Jochen had no objections, and his brother-in-law, the Rector Baldrian, undertook the task of procuring one. When she had been six months at Rexow, Frau Nüssler said she was a cross old thing, she scolded the little girls from morning to night and made them so skittish that they did not know how to behave; she must go. Thereupon Kaufman Kurz looked up another; and one day, when nobody in Rexow dreamed of impending evil, a sort of grenadier walked in at the door, with heavy black eyebrows, and sallow complexion, and with spectacles on her nose, and announced herself as the new "governess." She began to talk French to the little twins, and as she observed that the poor little creatures were so ignorant that they could not understand her in the least, she turned, in the same language, to young Jochen. Such a thing had never happened to young Jochen in his life; he let his pipe fall from his mouth, and as they were drinking coffee he said, in order to say something, "Mother, ask the new school-ma'am to take another cup." This one was a "governess" over the whole house, and Frau Nüssler stood it bravely for a while; but finally she said, "Stop! This won't do; if anybody is to command here it is I, for I am the nearest, as Frau Pastorin says;" and she gave the grenadier her marching orders. Then uncle Bräsig offered his assistance, and engaged a teacher,--"A smart one," he said, "always in good spirits, and she can play you dead on the harpsichord." He was right; one evening in the winter, there arrived at Rexow a little blue-cheeked, hump-backed body, who, after the first ten minutes, attacked the new piano, which Jochen had bought at auction, and belaboured it as if she were threshing wheat. When she had gone to bed, young Jochen opened the piano, and when he saw that three strings were broken, he shut it up again, and said, "Yes, what shall we do about it?" There were lively times in the house now; the girl-governess ran and romped with the little girls, until Frau Nüssler came to the conclusion that her oldest, Lining, had really more sense than the mamselle. She wished to inform herself how the mamselle managed the children in school-hours; she requested, therefore, to be shown a plan of their studies, and the next day Lining brought her a great sheet of paper with all the "branches" marked out. There was German and French, Orthography and Geography, and Religion, and Biblical History, and other History, and also Biblical Natural History, and then to conclude with, music, and music, and music.