I have not till now had an opportunity to make known this fault of Albano, that he never spoke his opinion more freely and strongly than just then when he had reason to fear losing one or two heavens of his life by the stake; in cases of less danger he could be more yielding. Although, therefore, he observed that the Minister's lady was painfully reminded thereby of the muscular, but also hard-grasping, hand of her wild son,--or much rather _for the very reason_ that he observed it, and because he proposed to be armor-bearer to this future friend,--he stuck to his opinion, threw all instruments for breaking in the young manly will out of the school-rooms into the street, and said, in his strongly relieved style: "The Goths preferred never to send their children to school, in order that they might remain lions. Even if maidens must be soaked in milk a day before planting them out in the civil world, boys, however, must be stuck, like apricots, with the stony shell in the earth, because they will soon enough throw off and forsake the stone by their rooting and growth."--The Lector, with his fine openness,--a crystal vase with golden edge,--remarked, with a gentle reprimand of Alban's impetuosity, that at least the way in which they had severally adduced their proofs was one of those very proofs themselves; and women needed and showed more patience with persons, and we more with things. The Minister's wife, who imagined herself listening more to her son than to his friend, was silent, and stepped nearer to the window. Amid these war-troubles the evening had wheeled her resplendent moon up over the eastern mountains, and the streams of her light flowed in at this moment, from all quarters, through the whole garden that lay stretched out before the eastern room, and lay in its broad alleys and flower-circles, when all at once a little round house appeared through upshooting water-jets, kindled into triumphal arches by the moon-light, and stood, even to its Italian trellised roof, all in a blaze. With soft emotion, the Minister's lady said: "On that water-house stands my Liana; she is trying the evaporation of the fountain; the physician promises himself much therefrom. And Providence grant it!"