The friends found their valises in the visitors' room, and were shortly after summoned by a gentle knock at the door, and conducted into the dining-room. There the proprietor was awaiting them, together with half-a-dozen sun-burnt officials of the farm, the Mamselle, the tutor, and the children. When they entered, the Proprietor spoke to his daughter in a window-niche; the daughter probably gave a favorable report of them, for he came toward them with unclouded countenance, and said in his abrupt way, "I hope you will put up with our fare." He then introduced the strangers to those present, calling them by their names, and adding, "two gentlemen from the University." Every one stood behind his chair, placed according to his station and age. The Proprietor took the head of the table, next him Ilse; on the other side the Professor and Doctor; then on both sides the farm officials, after them, the Mamselle and the girls, the tutor and the boys. Little Franz approached his seat at the lower end of the table, folded his hands and monotonously pronounced a short grace. Then all the chairs were drawn forward at the same moment, and two maids in peasant costume brought in the dishes. It was a simple meal; a bottle of wine was placed between the strangers; the host, his family, and the dependants drank a dark, golden beer. Silently and zealously each one fell to; only at the upper end of the table was there any conversation. The friends expressed to the Proprietor the pleasure that the house and its surroundings afforded them; and the host laughed ironically when the Doctor praised the thick walls of the structure. Then the talk rambled on to the surrounding country, and the dialect and character of the peasantry. "It has struck me again to-day," said the Professor, "with what suspicion the peasants regard us city folks. They regard our language, manners, and habits as those of another race; and when I see what the agricultural laborer has in common with the so-called educated classes, I feel painfully that it is much too little." "And whose fault is it," retorted the host, "but that of the educated classes? Do not take it amiss, if I tell you, as a simple man, that this high cultivation pleases me as little as the ignorance and stubbornness which surprises you in our country people. You yourselves, for example, make a long journey, in order to find an old forgotten manuscript which was written by an educated man in a nation that has passed away. But I ask what have millions of men, who speak the same language as you, are of the same race, and live near you, what have they gained by all the learning that you have acquired for yourselves and small numbers of wealthy people of leisure? When you speak to my laborers, they do not understand you. If you wished to speak to them of your learning, my farm hands would stand before you like savages. Is that a sound state of affairs? I tell you, so long as this lasts, we are not a well-conditioned people."