Stephen flushed. He thought of some vigorous words that Miss Puss Russell had used on the subject of the Dutch." "No," said he, emphatically. "I am glad," answered Richter, with a note of sadness, in his voice. "Do not despise us before you know more of us. We are still feudal in Germany--of the Middle Ages. The peasant is a serf. He is compelled to serve the lord of the land every year with so much labor of his hands. The small farmers, the 'Gross' and 'Mittel Bauern', we call them, are also mortgaged to the nobles who tyrannize our Vaterland. Our merchants are little merchants--shopkeepers, you would say. My poor father, an educated man, was such. They fought our revolution." "And now," said Stephen, "why do they not keep their hold?" Richter sighed. "We were unused to ruling," he answered. "We knew not how to act--what to do. You must remember that we were not trained to govern ourselves, as are you of the English race, from children. Those who have been for centuries ground under heel do not make practical parliamentarians. No; your heritage is liberty--you Americans and English; and we Germans must desert our native land to partake of it." "And was it not hard to leave?" asked Stephen, gently. The eyes of the German filled at the recollection, nor did he seem ashamed of his tears. "I had a poor old father whose life was broken to save the Vaterland, but not his spirit," he cried, "no, not that. My father was born in 1797. God directed my grandfather to send him to the Kolnisches gymnasium, where the great Jahn taught. Jahn was our Washington, the father of Germany that is to be. "Then our Fatherland was French. Our women wore Parisian clothes, and spoke the language; French immorality and atheism had spread like a plague among us Napoleon the vile had taken the sword of our Frederick from Berlin. It was Father Jahn (so we love to call him), it was Father Jahn who founded the 'Turnschulen', that the generations to come might return to simple German ways,--plain fare, high principles, our native tongue; and the development of the body. The downfall of the fiend Napoleon and the Vaterland united--these two his scholars must have written in their hearts. All summer long, in their black caps and linen pantaloons, they would trudge after him, begging a crust here and a cheese there, to spread his teachings far and wide under the thatched roofs.