Of course, I kept my doubts to myself and joined in when he laughed; but
my heart was heavy. Could I avoid these companions? Yet I had come to be
industrious, prepare quickly for the university, and give my mother
pleasure.

Poor woman! She had made such careful inquiries before sending me here;
and what a dangerous soil for a precocious boy just entering the years of
youth was this manufacturing town and an institution so badly managed as
the Kottbus School! I had come hither full of beautiful ideals and
animated by the best intentions; but the very first day made me suspect
how many obstacles I should encounter; though I did not yet imagine the
perils which lay in my companion's words. All the young gentlemen who had
been drawn hither by the examination were sons of good families, but the
part which these pupils, and I with them, played in society, at balls,
and in all the amusements of the cultivated circle in the town was so
prominent, the views of life and habits which they brought with them so
completely contradicted the idea which every sensible person has of a
grammar-school boy, that their presence could not fail to injure the
school.

Of course, all this could not remain permanently concealed from the
higher authorities. The old head-master was suddenly retired, and one of
the best educators summoned in his place man who quickly succeeded in
making the decaying Kottbus School one of the most excellent in all
Prussia. I had the misfortune of being for more than two years a pupil
under the government of the first head-master, and the good luck of
spending nearly the same length of time under the charge of his
successor.

My mother was satisfied with the result of the examination, and the next
afternoon she drove with me to our relatives at Komptendorf. Frau von
Berndt, the youngest daughter of our beloved kinsman, Moritz von
Oppenfeld, united to the elegance of a woman reared in a large city the
cordiality of the mistress of a country home. Her husband won the entire
confidence of every one who met the gaze of his honest blue eyes. He had
given up the legal profession to take charge of his somewhat impoverished
paternal estate, and soon transformed it into one of the most productive
in the whole neighbourhood.

He was pleased that I, a city boy, knew so much about field and forest,
so at my very first visit he invited me to repeat it often.

The next morning I took leave of my mother, and my school life beg