_He_ (like an old professor at an exam.). You apparently occupy yourself but little with reading? _I._ Just enough to do penance for my sins, and to keep up my English. _He_ (with a kind of fatherly solicitude which strikes me as intensely comical, and with an air of severity which exasperates me). And, may I ask, do you think it necessary to keep up your French in the same manner? _I._ In the same manner. (Oh, my dear, I grew crimson; for the thought of that wretched book flashed across my mind that Fred got for me last winter, and of which I would not tell you one word, despite all your entreaties.) _He._ You are acquainted, then, with the modern French ideas of society? _I_ (impatiently). I might say “No,” and you would believe me; but I hate a lie, and so, like an honorable fellow, I prefer to say “Yes.” _He_ (looks at me a long while--not angrily this time, but quite sorrowfully--and murmurs, “What a pity! but ‘honorable fellow’ is delightful”). Tell me, old man--I beg pardon, honored countess--do you ever read a German book? We have some well worth reading. _I._ Oh, Goethe and Schiller! Yes, I know---- Nesti, a weary prospect opened out to me. In imagination I saw ourselves sitting like the young couple on the title page of a German magazine--he reading aloud, of course out of Schiller; I, in “attitude of rapt attention,” nestling up to him; our baby, in the arms of my one maid and general factotum, gravely turning over the leaves of a family Goethe. “If that is his picture of our domestic life,” thought I, “the sooner I undeceive him the better.” And as he hurriedly asked, “You know Goethe and Schiller?” I answered resolutely, “Pooh! do not expect me to study the classics. Goethe, I have always been told, is immoral; and Schiller is quite too long-winded for me.” So that was settled once for all. We then talked about other things, principally about Rattler, whom he said was a jolly little creature, swearing not to betray me. And he was as nice as could be when I asked him to collect postage stamps for me. It certainly took him some time before he understood what I wanted them for, and that they have to be sent out to China, as soon as one has a million, to buy a little Chinese boy. “And what will you do with him when you have got him?” he asked. And I told him that he was to be christened and trained for me as my little page, to stand behind my chair and wait upon me at table, in a yellow dress with a long pigtail. The count laughed heartily (he is delightful when he laughs) and with a hearty shake of the hand, said, “All right, I will help you. At any rate, this is one ideal object.” _Addio._ Your MUSCHI. SEBENBERG CASTLE, December 6, 1883.