ad saved and denied herself, and even consented to the
indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how
delightful it had been!

Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly
housemother; the chubby _Maedchen_ who knitted her a silk purse, and
cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep,
honest voice.

How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her
gay little voice when one came down the shady street!"_Da ist sie, ja!_"
she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with
his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good?
How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes
were! And he used to sing--why were there no bass voices in the
States?"_Kennst du das Land_" he used to sing, and his mother cried
softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little.

"No," she said to the girl who was reciting, "no, it takes the dative.
I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for
learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now."

And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich
German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She
had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down--she was
not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now--But it
was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some
yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this--some _Maedchen_ who cared not
for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife
and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought
that.

She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had!
What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of
work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany--to see
Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had
loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: "But thou wilt
come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me
not wait long!" He had seemed too quiet then--too slow and too easily
content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now
her heart said, "O fool!"

Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should
go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more
quiet and peaceful? The very fa