"It is enough that we conduct ourselves as our injured pride demands, but always to throw it up to others is improper and stupid. I tell you those were pleasanter and happier times when we used to celebrate the New Year's eve with a ball, and then the next morning received congratulations, and in the evening, instead of sitting sadly alone as we three are, there was a gathering of gay friends for a dinner." "They may have been gayer times," said Hugo, nettled, "more amusing, too, and more comfortable, but they were only transient. They were in a condescending mood, and because of an amiable caprice on their part we were allowed to celebrate their feast days with them, and to take part, humbly, in certain civic and public holidays. But religion, despite all, raised an impassable wall between us and them. We were allowed to enjoy pageants, illuminations, parades, patriotic celebrations of all kinds, and then Christmas and New Year, when you're called upon to give in charity. How tolerant! O, how liberal! O, how I hate that word. Sufferance I call it. Sufferance! To be tolerated! You're kindly tolerated, partly as a participant, partly as an observer. And you're perfectly aware that you may be pushed aside at any moment when found _de trop_ or too forward. It surely is a thousand times better to be as we are now; without the loud gayety of people to whom at bottom we are strange, and must always remain so. I remember, during my upper class days, the last formal New Year's dinner at this house, how Herr von Knesebeck proposed a toast to the Emperor coupled with the toast for the New Year. And how jovially and with what amiable condescension the attorney-general, Herr von Uckermarck, proposed a toast to mother. What an honor! And the way in which you welcomed the guests, the honored friends of the house--strangers then, to-day, and forever! What led them to us was not our company, but the choice pleasures and the agreeable times our money afforded. And to-day they dispense with all that. It would be impossible to get the best of them to come to us now; but the best of us are those who gratefully reject the honor." His father was visibly annoyed, and Rita looked anxiously at her brother, who seemed particularly harsh and relentless. If he suspected! A dread possessed her, and pallor overspread her face. The dinner passed off in no very pleasant mood. The three missed the conciliating gentleness of the mother, who shared the son's views without his rancor, and who had opened her husband's eyes to the altered social conditions, while yet appreciating and sympathizing with his regret over the sad changes. Everyone was glad to have the meal over. Rita excused herself at once. Hugo and his father could find no congenial topic for conversation; and so the first day of the new year drew to an unhappy end. * * * * *