y
smile. "Is it a miracle that the Germans can teach us desirable
knowledge and morals, as Rebner insists?"

Kirtley readily perceived that he had scarcely sufficient precise
information to discuss intelligently general topics with this boy.
The latter could always quote some acknowledged and ponderous
authority--German, of course, and all the more awe-inspiring, but of
whom Gard had not heard. For it usually came down to the question,
Who are your authorities? He rarely could tell who his were. They
promptly faded away before all the weight and definiteness Ernst
could bring to bear.

While Rudolph and Ernst were so far along as a result of a busy
adolescence, Fraeulein Elsa, as Gard discovered, was in her way not
behind. She knew English and French pretty well and was quite an
accomplished musician, able to play from memory on the winged Pleyel
almost whole books of classic music. She could paint fairly well in
oil and was now taking up etching with enthusiastic assiduity. She
could sew, cook, run the house. In brief, her days were as full as
her brothers' in propelling tasks. _She_, apparently, did not have
"boys on the brain."

Kirtley threw up his hands in imitation of his venerated professor.
This was just an ordinary German miss. He had scarcely dreamed of
such things in a girl.

It was all illustrated by Gard's piano playing, which was cheap and
meaningless strumming. He could rattle through a lot of popular
tunes and stumble through a few short simple school-girl salon
pieces. The Buchers were a real orchestra. With the ladies at the
piano, the old Herr at the flute, Ernst at the violin and Rudi at
the 'cello, they could play a dozen programmes and furnish enjoyment
for the listener.

And always salutary, enlightened, cultivated music. The house
reverberated with a multitude of choice enduring arias, sung, hummed
or whistled, and this made Villa Elsa almost take on a charm for
Gard. He had not known how his melodious soul was starved.

Why should not the Germans be expected to have noble souls with all
the wealth of distinguished, inspiring music flowing through their
lives? Should it not give them necessarily a strong, desirable
spirit, fortify them in healthy aspirations, encourage them to get
the best out of existence? This incentive and pleasureableness,
making for the good, the true and the beautiful--must it not
contribute a deep richness and righteousness to the Teuton heart?

And is it to be