t reply, she had the faculty of not seeming to hear
them; and if she were pressed to give a decided reply, she answered
only just so far as she thought best, never allowing herself to be
urged beyond a prescribed limit.

She soon became the centre of the circle. The fundamental trait which
characterized all that she said and did was truthfulness; she never
spoke for effect, she never smiled when there was nothing to smile at;
she gave to every utterance of her own the natural tone, and to every
utterance of others the requisite degree of attention. This
truthfulness was not compromised in the least by her reserve, for she
never violated the truth in the smallest particular, and it is not
necessary to speak out everything that one knows and thinks. This is
not craftiness; it is rather the simple dictate of prudence, and
prudence is a virtue too; it is the same thing as goodness; nature
herself is prudent, that is to say, veiled.

She was very happy to indulge and cultivate her fondness for botany by
means of Sonnenkamp's splendid collection of plants, and his
essentially valuable communications.

The Mother and Aunt lived together in perfect harmony, and yet were
very different in character; and as they had very different spheres of
knowledge in which they found enlivenment, so also they had different
spheres of life. Their amateur-pursuits were the two most beautiful in
the whole circle of sciences. The Professorin was a botanist. Aunt
Claudine an astronomer, sedulously avoiding, indeed, every appearance
of the bluestocking; she passed many silent evenings in the tower
making observations of her own, generally through a small telescope,
without any one's being aware of the fact.

The Professorin took delight in spending several hours every day in the
hot-houses, and among the rare imported plants; and when Sonnenkamp one
day showed her his method of training fruit-trees, she did not express
admiration and astonishment as other people did, but exhibited a great
proficiency in the knowledge of the new French art of gardening, and
remarked how peculiar it was that the restless French people, when they
withdrew from the whirl of active life, should devote themselves with
such tender and persistent care to the cultivation of fruit.
Sonnenkamp's countenance gleamed with pleasure, when she maintained
that in orcharding, as he practised it, there was the unfolding of a
talent for military generalship, inasmuch as he was cal