During the supper the Rector proposed the first toast--"Our Academical Society"--and the assembled gentlemen thought his slight allusion to friendly concord among the colleagues touched in an indelicate way on the burning question of the day. But this effect passed away immediately in other toasts, and Ilse remarked that the supper speeches here were carried on very differently to those in the Rollmaus family. One colleague after another clinked the glass; and how elegantly and intellectually they knew how to portray things with their hands behind their backs and looking coolly around, and alluding, in fine sentences, to the guests, the ladies and the rest of mankind. When the corks of the champagne popped, the eloquence became overpowering, and two professors even clinked their glasses at the same time. Then the Professor of History arose; all became still. He greeted the new members of the University--women as well as men--and Ilse saw that this applied to herself and looked down on her plate. But she grew alarmed when she found that he became more personal, and at last her own name as well as that of the wife of the Mineralogist, who was sitting by Felix, sounded through the room. The glasses resounded, a flourish of trumpets was blown, many colleagues and some of the ladies arose and proceeded with their glasses toward them. A little procession took place behind the chairs, and Ilse and the Mineralogist's wife had to clink their glasses incessantly, to bow and return thanks. When Ilse rose blushingly for this purpose, her eyes glanced involuntarily to the next table, where the wife of Struvelius was sitting opposite, and she observed that the latter half moved her hand toward her glass, then quickly drew it back, and looked gloomily down.