On another occasion they happened to meet. She was among the first girls in the Institute; the oldest Knips was already Magister, and the younger apprentice in her father's business, and Fritz Hahn had just become a doctor. She had rowed herself between the trees in the park till the boat struck a snag and her oar fell into the water. As she was bending down to recover it, she also lost her hat and parasol. Laura, in her embarrassment, looked to the shore for help. Again it so happened that Fritz Hahn was passing, lost in thought. He heard the faint cry which had escaped her, jumped into the muddy water, fished up the hat and parasol, and drew the boat to the shore. Here he offered Laura his hand and helped her on to dry ground. Laura undoubtedly owed him thanks, and he had also treated her with respect and called her Miss. But then he looked very ridiculous, he bowed so awkwardly, and he stared at her so fixedly through his glasses. And when she afterwards learned that he had caught a terrible cold from his jump into the swamp, she became indignant, both at herself and at him, because she had screamed when there was no danger, and he had rushed to her aid with such useless chivalry. She could have helped herself, and now the Hahns would think she owed them no end of thanks. On this point she might have been at ease, for Fritz had quietly changed his clothes and dried them in his room. But indeed it was quite natural that the two hostile children should avoid each other, for Fritz was of quite a different nature. He also was an only child, and had been brought up tenderly by a kind-hearted father and a too anxious mother. He was, from his earliest childhood, quiet and self-possessed, unassuming and studious. In his home he had created for himself a little world of his own where he indulged in out-of-the-way studies. Whilst around him was the merry hum of life, he pored over Sanskrit characters, and investigated the relations between the wild spirits that hovered over the Teutoburger battle, and the gods of the Veda, who floated over palm-woods and bamboos in the hot valley of the Ganges. He also was the pride and joy of his family; his mother never failed to bring him his cup of coffee every morning; then she seated herself opposite him with her bunch of keys, and looked silently at him while he ate his breakfast, scolded him gently for working so late the previous night, and told him that she could not sleep quietly till she heard him push back his chair and place his boots before the door to be cleaned. After breakfast, Fritz went to his father to bid him good morning, and he knew that it gave his father pleasure when he walked with him for a few minutes in the garden, observing the growth of his favorite flowers, and when, above all, he approved of his garden projects. This was the only point on which Mr. Hahn was sometimes at variance with his son; and, as he could not refute his son's arguments,