A heavy weight fell on Laura's heart; she felt herself dragged down into an abyss of injustice and injury. Her father's conduct paralyzed her energies, and tears burst from her eyes. "I see that you at least feel the wrong you are committing," continued Mrs. Hahn, more calmly. "Do not do it again. Believe me, it is easy to pain others, but it is a sorry business, and my poor husband and I have not deserved it from you. We have seen you grow up before our eyes; and even though we have had no intercourse with your parents, we have always been pleased with you, and no-one in our house has ever wished you ill. You do not know what a good man Mr. Hahn is, but still you ought not to have behaved so. Since we have dwelt here we have experienced many vexations from this house; but that you should share your father's views pains me most." Laura endeavored in vain to dry her tears. "I repeat to you that you do me injustice; more I cannot say in self-justification, nor will I. You have grieved me more than you know, and I am satisfied that I have a clear conscience." With these words she hastened into the house, and Mrs. Hahn returned home, uncertain as to the result of her visit. Laura paced up and down her little room wringing her hands. Innocent and yet guilty in spite of her good will, wounded to the quick, dragged into a family feud, the unhappy results of which could not be foreseen, she reviewed the events of the past day in her excited mind. At last she seated herself at her little writing-table, took out her journal, and confided her sorrows to this silent friend bound in violet leather. She sought comfort from the souls of others who had borne up nobly under similar griefs, and at last found the confirmation of her experience in the expressive well-known passage of Goethe's Faust: "Reason doth folly, good doth evil grow; The child must reap the mischief that the fathers sow." Had she not wished to do what was reasonable and kind, and had not folly and evil arisen from it? And had not misfortune befallen her without her fault merely because she was a child of the house? With this sentence she closed a passionate effusion. But in order not to appear to her conscience devoid of affection, the poor child wrote immediately underneath these words: "My dear, good father." Then she closed the book, feeling more comforted. But the severest humiliation to her was the feeling that she should be judged unjustly by the people over the way; and she folded her arms and thought how she could justify herself. She, indeed, could do nothing; but there was a worthy man who was the confidant of every one in the house, who had cured her canary bird when ill, and removed a stain from the nose of her little bust of Schiller. She resolved, therefore, to tell only the faithful Gabriel what Mrs. Hahn had said, and not a word to her mother unless obliged to do so.