"I should wish above everything that all men of intellect should recognise Hegel as their mental guide; what is more adapted to such guidance than a system which inculcates the progress of man in the consciousness of freedom. What does Herbart teach?--all respect to your father! Nothing of the sort! He confuses the good and the beautiful in a lamentable manner; nowhere does he speak of the progress of mankind. With him the mind is a _tabula rasa_, where different ideas agree to meet. Some are stronger, others weaker; they create a king of the rats, and hang one upon another. It is an excellent comedy; there some tumble down again headlong over the threshold of knowledge! Ah, my Fräulein! that may perhaps suit the ideas which one entertains when knitting stockings, but not the ideas which shall found the world's existence." "Papa may be mistaken," said Euphrasia. "Our mother always maintained that he was mistaken, and if this occurred in matters that we understand, it is probably also the case in those that we do not comprehend." "Schiller certainly maintained," continued Reising, "that only 'error is life, and knowledge is death,' but which German University could choose such a motto? Why, in that case all would be changed into churchyards, because knowledge is their life, and inconceivably much is known, my Fräulein!" "Certainly, certainly, Herr Doctor, inconceivably much, and even by single individuals, yourself for instance," said Euphrasia, as she bowed humbly before Hegel's all-knowing pupil. "At least a _horror vacui_ assails us true disciples of knowledge from a Socratian standpoint. We are to know that we can know nothing; of what use, then, would be the search of a whole life-time? But, my Fräulein, it is not about that I would now speak with you. Even the difference of opinions is as old as the world, but I only wished to tell you that it is a misfortune if we, your father and I, cannot agree." "Oh, there are some points," said Euphrasia, rather hastily, "about which this unanimity is not so difficult." "Do you think so, my Fräulein?" said the Doctor, quickly, as he passed his hand several times through his bristly hair. "Oh, you make me happy--if I dared hope, yes, I must confess to you, I must--" Just at this moment, when Euphrasia hung so devoutly upon the lips of the future private tutor that her plaits even forgot their otherwise wonted pendulum-like motions, malicious chance brought her two dear sisters, Ophelia and Lori, upon the scene, who, behind the creepers around the arbour, had listened, unperceived, to Reising's last outpourings, and now believed that the time had arrived for them to come forward. "We bring interesting news, dear sister," said Lori, who spitefully remarked the effect produced by her appearance.