The ranger, taking it up in his arms, carried it home. It had the warmest corner in the pine plantation given to it; a little hut was built for it, with a soft bed of moss and hay. I have spent whole days by it. Never in all my life did I desire anything so ardently as that it should grow used to me and not be afraid of me. But trustful in freedom, timid and full of mistrust in confinement, it never grew used to me, never lost its dread of me--it died. When my dear father came home I told him I never would go shooting again. He laughed; and in my excitement I cried: “You ought not to desire it of me. If ever I married, and had a daughter who took pleasure in shooting any living creature, I should be utterly miserable.” “Don’t talk such nonsense. You have grown quite idiotic, child. And,” he continued entreatingly, “and, above all, do talk in English.” * * * * * Now I am going to tell of my dear father. To describe him so accurately as that all who read these memoirs should seem to have his living presentment before them is beyond my power; I will only endeavor to portray him as he is, and, especially, as he is to me. He really often has occasion to find fault with me. I am either too noisy and too merry, or else too much in my own room reading. He says a learned woman is the greatest of all calamities. He looks upon learning as an importunate being ever ready to spring upon one unawares, on one’s making it the slightest advance. In vain do I try to comfort him with the assurance that I might know of the whole contents of my library by heart, and yet not have any pretensions to be a bluestocking. “Heaven grant it!” is his answer. “A woman’s head should be in her heart. From her heart and disposition should come all her understanding.” He has said this so often to me, that I yesterday ventured to raise an objection. “You tell me it must come; but it does not. There are things which even a woman cannot fathom from the mere depths of her temperament. So Baron Schwarzburg von Livland said lately; and I have not the least idea what he means, and my heart certainly has not told me.” But I am anticipating events.