the classes, distinguished a few favourites according to his old bad custom. She was implacable towards these successors of Iduna. She took possession of their copy-books after her husband had already corrected them, and let her red pen run riot through their pages until they resembled a corn field overgrown with poppies. Then their domestic peace was seriously imperilled, and the first-class listening at the door, had the satisfaction of witnessing noisy scenes between the conductors of the establishment. How differently Fräulein Sohle had maintained discipline! Yes, even some lovely eyes peeping through the keyhole pretended to have seen how Dr. Sperner's moustache, the terror and glory of the school, played a suffering part in these disputes. At last, however, the Doctor gained his point, Lori was merely, by courtesy, the principal of the school. Although this couple's last kindly relation to Giulia had consisted in the homage which they paid to her talent in the theatre by hissing and whistling, it did not, in the least, prevent them paying a friendly visit to Herr and Frau von Blanden. Times change, and besides, in those days, they were a portion of the public, the most irresponsible creature that the world contains, because the individual disappears within it like a wave in the ocean, which none can make permanently stationary? Lori was most agreeable; she could not sufficiently regret that Frau von Blanden had said farewell to the stage. Since her retirement there had been a total lack of all real interest, and nothing was heard but commonplace ballad-singing for salaries and wages, without any of the divine spark. Sperner, too, kissed the lady's hand with the very lips which had given the signal whistle in the pit, and looked up at her with such true-hearted eyes that she could not but believe in his genuineness. He was one of those honest men whose frank manner, whose warm impulsive speeches inspire confidence at once, one of those men, with open hearts and open shirt collars, whose genuineness, as Kuhl said, is nothing but studied hypocrisy, while behind the mask of their honesty lurks the vilest deception.