r pretensions, all my influence would have been gone forever.
She would have left us, gone who knows whither, and been lost, so that
I had nothing for it but to seem to credit all she said and yet hold the
matter lightly, and I said beauty had no value except when associated
with rank and station. If queens and princesses be handsome, they are
more fitted to adorn this high estate, but for humble folk it is as
great a mockery as these tinsel gems we wear in the circus.

"'Max says not,' said she to me one evening, after one of my usual
lectures. 'Max says, there are queens would give their coronets to have
my hair; ay, or even one of the dimples in my cheek.'

"'Max is a villain,' said I, before I could control my words.

"'Max is a _vero signor!_' said she, haughtily, 'and not like one of
us; and more, too, I 'll go and tell him what you have called him.' She
bounded away from me at this, and I saw her no more till nightfall.

"'What has happened to you, poor child!' said I, as I saw her lying on
the floor of her room, her forehead bleeding, and her dress all draggled
and torn. She would not speak to me for a long while, but by much
entreating and caressing I won upon her to tell me what had befallen
her. She had gone to the top of the 'Glucksburg,' and thrown herself
down. It was a fearful height, and only was she saved by being caught
by the brambles and tangled foliage of the cliff; and all this for
'one harsh word of mine,' she said. But I knew better; the struggle was
deeper in her heart than she was aware of, and Max had gone suddenly
away, and we saw no more of him."

"Did she grieve after him?"

"I scarcely can say she did. She fretted, but I think it was for her own
loneliness, and the want of that daily flattery she had grown so fond
of. She became overbearing, and even insolent, too, with all her equals,
and though for many a day she had been the spoiled child of the troop,
many began to weary of her waywardness. I don't know how all this
might have turned out, when, just as suddenly, she changed and became
everything that she used to be."

When the old man had got thus far, the girl arose, and without saying a
word, laid the slate before us. Vaterchen, not very quick-sighted, could
not at once understand the picture, but I caught it at once, and laughed
immoderately. She had taken the scene where I had presented Vaterchen
and herself to the ladies at the tea-table, and with an intense humor,
sketched