ng gate in the wall, and usually to the clanging of
a bell that announced you, you entered the house on a level with the
ground. On this floor were the kitchen and dining room. Next came
the _belle etage_, with the salon and music room opening into each
other, and with another apartment or two. Above, the chambers. And
still above, the two attic rooms. All was plain but substantial.

The garden furnished not only flowers but vegetables. And in one
corner stood a table and chairs for afternoon tea with cakes or beer
with cheese. Here the ever-busy sewing and knitting mainly went on
in summer, and a forgotten book, half read, was usually left by some
one of the young folks. There was a drowsy, old-fashioned air about
the premises that recalled illustrations in some of the editions of
Grimm's fairy tales.

Aside from the abundance of bound music, Gard had been far from
expecting that fine examples of art and literature would be so
meagerly represented in this representative German home. There
were poor pictures of Bismarck, of William the Second, and of
his grandfather aping the appearance of Gambrinus.

Prominent also were steel engravings of Saxon and Prussian kings of
whom Kirtley had never heard. But there they were, conspicuous
household gods, with fierce, epic miens and lordly bodies,
surrounded by wreaths of glory and Latin texts, and supported by
cannon pointed at the observer with menaces of angry welcome. And
not to be forgotten were the august thrones, avenging swords of
royalty, and the dark swirling clouds suggesting the German Olympus.

"It all harmonizes with the arsenal down in the entrance,"
muttered Gard.

As for books, he was taken at an angle still more unexpected and
significant. Goethe and Schiller and the other old Teuton classics,
breathing of liberalness and freedom--figures that had always stood
out in the world as leading exponents and guardians of a cultured
enlightenment--were only present in the Bucher home in the form of
musty, unused volumes.

These authors, who were so loved, advocated and expounded in
American colleges and whom Kirtley had come to Germany to know
better and to worship, were scarcely ever mentioned. He was
astonished to find that the Germans thought little of them. And
Heine likewise, that naughty child of the Vaterland! At the Buchers
the presentable red and gilt edition of his poems was kept in
Fraeulein's escritoire in her room.

American education, Gard began