was separated by the consciousness that he had mortally offended him through her whom he worshipped, so that when he met him in the street he was apt to look to the other side in his painful embarrassment. And what had he gained in return for so much lost happiness? The few rare moments which Oswald gave to serious thoughts on his present situation were unsatisfactory enough. His position in the college was almost untenable, and yet he had occupied it scarcely three months. The whole "humanity" of the rector, Clemens, was not sufficient to cover with the cloak of charity the great and the small vices which Oswald had committed in his official capacity; and Mrs. Clemens declared before the assembled dramatic club, with regard to the same unfortunate young man, that "she had cherished a serpent in her bosom." And the worthy lady had good reason to complain. She had met Oswald with a three-fold friendship: as the mother of two marriageable daughters, as the wife of his superior, and as the president of the dramatic club, and she had been deeply offended in all these capacities. Oswald had not only failed to return the bashful attachment which had begun to germinate in the hearts of Thusnelda and Fredegunda, but he had called these victims of his caprice before a numerous company "little goslings, who wanted nothing but the plumage to be perfect." Ah, it had all been duly and faithfully reported! He had compared the fair president, the wife of his presiding officer, with an old turkey hen, who was so proud of the goslings she had hatched that her empty head was utterly turned; and, finally, he had not only ceased to frequent the dramatic club, after reading there three times amid general applause, but he had passed over, with flags flying, so to say, into the hostile camp, and had become an active member of the lyric club which had rapidly risen under Mrs. Jager's direction to a splendor unheard of in the annals of the dramatic club. Certainly, if Oswald had felt no other misdeed but this on his conscience, the cloud of dark discontent which was continually hanging on his brow would have seemed natural enough.