While speaking these words the Frau Regierungsräthin drew herself up to her full height. "Then, at least, I will have another glass of beer over there." "Nothing! That too is injurious for you! In other matters you are quite right! It is a disgrace to bow to the orders of such a theatrical princess; but to obey a sensible woman has never brought evil or dishonour." Amid such conversations the family had reached the small fisherman's cottage in which they lived; Eva soon went to her attic-chamber, locked the door, opened the window and looked out into the moonlight night. Silently she had listened to her parents' discussion; only a few days ago she had taken young Doctor Schöner under her protection against all accusations, to-day she could do so no longer! She had been credulous enough to believe the Doctor's words of flattery; had he not distinguished her amongst her girl friends! As yet no word of love had been spoken, but a liking for the gifted young man had found utterance in her heart. People talk so much of first and only love--and yet, if one looks closer into it, all kinds of budding affections, which never attain their full development, precede this first love; near the first rose there are plenty of buds which hang broken and faded on the stalk; many side-chapels where love erects itself modest altars, are forsaken before it strides to the high one in the great nave of the church. And no girl leaves sixteen or seventeen years behind her, without having obtained in a brother's friend, in a neighbour, in a _vis-à-vis_, a small ideal for the preliminary studies of love. There is a heart's idolatry even in earliest youth; yet the roots of such affections only rest loosely in the lightest soil. Eva's first attempt at love was devoted to the young Doctor; she had erected a little temple for him in her heart, and adorned his picture with many floral wreaths of tender feelings. It is true her friends had often cautioned her in joke against the homage of the fickle poet; she ascribed it to envy, which even amongst young female friends is not a rarity. But now she had seen, with her own eyes, how he had bestowed his admiration upon another proud beauty, yes wandered with her through the country; she had heard how confidently that other had asserted her rights over him; it had dealt a stab to her heart, and it was a consolation for her, when her father and mother expressed themselves so hostilely towards him: a defiant feeling became powerful within her, she would hear nothing more from him, release herself entirely from him, drive away his picture as one wipes a dream out of one's eyes. Yet slightly below the surface as the roots of a love, in this case not at all serious, had struck, it was a mixture of bitter and painful emotions which besieged the girl's heart, as it dug up its first shy affection.