o
erect into a moral system the existing relations of slavery.

"Nothing more natural," answered the Mother. "Whoever stands in such
relations all his life long, must make something for himself which he
calls moral principle. I cannot help thinking of your father again; he
has shown me a thousand times how people cannot bear to confess to
themselves that their life and actions are bad; they feel obliged to
prop them up with good principles. Yet, as I said, we must be quiet, we
have one good young spirit to be led to noble ends; that is our part.
Whence it sprang, or through what past life it may have come to us, is
not for us to determine. The past is our fate, the present, our duty.
There's another saying of your father's; and now good-night."

With a more composed mind, Eric returned to the villa. The owl had
flown from the mountain, and was now perched on the top of a tree in
the park, boldly sending forth its cry into the air. Eric heard it, and
Sonnenkamp heard it in the ante-room of his wife's chamber. There must
he, the father and husband, wait till his son came out, admittance
having been refused him while his wife spoke to Roland. At last the boy
came out, and his father asked him what his mother had said: he had
never done so before, but now he felt obliged to do it.

Roland answered that she had really said almost nothing; she had only
kissed him, and cried, and then asked him to hold her hand till she
went to sleep, and now she was sleeping quietly.

"Give me Parker's book," said Sonnenkamp.

"I haven't got it now; the Professorin took it away from me, and blamed
me very much for having read it secretly, and before I was old enough."

"Give my regards to Herr Eric; you have a better teacher than I
thought," said the father.

Roland went to Eric's room, but he had not yet returned.

The owl's cry was heard again from the tree-top in the park. Roland put
out the light, opened the window, took his rifle from the wall, fired,
and the owl fell from the tree. Roland ran down stairs, met Eric, and
told him that he had hit the bird; he then hurried into the park and
brought the creature in.

The whole house was in alarm. Frau Ceres was awakened, and her first
cry was:

"Has he killed himself?"

Sonnenkamp and Roland had to go to her room again, to show that they
were alive. Roland took the dead owl with him, but his mother would not
look at it, and only complained of having been deprived of her sleep.