Thus passed one visit after another. Next came the Rector, a Professor of Medicine, an agreeable man of the world, who kept up an elegant establishment. His wife was a plump, active lady, with restless, inquiring eyes. Then came the Secretary of the theological Consistory, a tall, thin gentleman with a sweet smile; his wife, too, was over-proportioned in everything,--in nose, mouth, and hospitality. The last was the Mineralogist, a clever young man with a very pretty wife; they had only been married a few months. While the young women, seated on the sofa, were rapidly becoming acquainted. Ilse was for the second time surprised by a question from the Professor: "Your home is not without interest for my department. Is there not a cave in the neighborhood?" Ilse colored and looked again at her husband. "It is on my father's estate." "Indeed! I am just now at work on a new discovery that has been made on your estate," exclaimed the Mineralogist. He produced a stone of remarkably radiated structure. "This is a very rare mineral that has been discovered in the neighborhood of the cave; it was sent me by an apothecary of the province." He told her the name of the mineral, and spoke of the stone of which the cave was formed, and the rock on which her father's house stood, just as if he had been there himself, and made Ilse describe the lines of the hills and the quarries of the neighborhood. He listened attentively to her clear answers, and thought the geological structure of the estate very remarkable. Ilse was delighted and exclaimed: "We imagined that no one in the world cared about us; but I see the learned gentlemen know more about our country than we ourselves do." "We know, at least, how to find something more precious than fragments of rock there," replied the Professor courteously. After their return home, Ilse entered her husband's room, where he had already sat down to his work. "Let me remain with you to-day, Felix? My head is confused with all the persons to whom you have taken me; I have seen so much within one day, and have had so much friendliness shown me by clever and distinguished men. The learned lady frightened me most; and, Felix, it is perhaps wrong in me to say so, for she is much more clever and refined, but I found a resemblance in her to a good old acquaintance of ours." "Mrs. Rollmaus," assented the Professor. "But this lady is in reality very clever," he added.