"What we have succeeded in obtaining has been very painful to my husband. For it has convinced him that he was deceived, while others discovered the true state of the case. It is a cruel grief to a wife when she is the instrument of bringing about such humiliation to him she loves best. This sorrow I shall long continue to feel. Besides this, our husbands are so estranged from one another, that a long time will elapse, before their wounded feelings will admit of a reconciliation, or allow them to cherish for each other the respect which as colleagues they mutually owe. I hope, however, that the relations between you and me will not suffer. I have discovered the worth of your heart, and I beg of you--in spite of my unprepossessing manner, of which I am well aware--to accept the friendship which I feel for you." As she walked slowly towards the door in her black dress. Ilse looked after her with a feeling of surprise, that the first impression made upon her by the learned lady should have been so quickly obliterated by other feelings. In the next number of the _Classical Gazette_ there appeared a short explanation by Professor Struvelius, in which he honorably acknowledged that he had been deceived, by undoubtedly a very expert deception, and that he must be grateful to the acuteness and friendly activity of his honored colleague who had contributed to the clearing up of the matter. "This explanation has been written by his wife," said the obdurate Doctor. "We may hope that the disagreeable affair has come to an end for all concerned in it," concluded the Professor with a light heart. But the hopes even of a great scholar are not always fulfilled. This quarrel of the scepter-bearing princes of the University had not only introduced Ilse into a new position, but had brought another into notice. On the evening of the decisive day that revealed the worthlessness of the parchment, Magister Knips sat shivering upon the floor in an unwarmed room of his poverty-stricken dwelling. Books lay in disorderly heaps on the shelves by the wall and on the floor, and he sat surrounded by them, like an ant-lion in his den. He shoved into a dark corner an old cigar chest of his brother's, which was filled with many small bottles and paint-pots, and laid the old books upon it. Then he placed the lamp on a stool near him, and with secret satisfaction took up one old book after another, examined the binding, read the title and last page, stroked it caressingly with his hand, and then again laid it on the heap. At last he seized an old Italian edition of a Greek author with both hands, moved nearer to the lamp, and examined it leaf by leaf. His mother called through the door: "Leave your books and come from that cold room to your supper." "This book has not been seen by any scholar for two hundred years. They deny, mother, that it is even in existence; but I have it in my hands--it belongs to me! This is a treasure, mother."