through the day, humming the music
of the night before, which was still running through his head. He
preserved with great secrecy in his writing-desk the cards engraved
with the order of the dances, and many other souvenirs besides; and his
face began to wear an expression of reserve.

Pranken was delighted to see his family, as he called the Sonnenkamps,
thus admitted into society. It was now arranged that Roland should take
part with the others in the French comedy. The young Countess
Ottersweier, who was to take the part of a page at the court of Louis
Fourteenth, was ill with the measles, and her part was assigned to
Roland. A beautiful dress was ordered for him, and all his thoughts
were now turned to the play and the rehearsals that were to precede it.

When the first dress-rehearsal took place, and Roland showed himself to
his parents in his becoming costume of close-fitting white silk tights,
they were full of admiration; his mother in especial could not restrain
her expressions of rapture. Roland glanced at Eric, who for some time
had been looking gloomily on the ground. He wanted to ask him why he
was so pedantic, for that was what his fellow-actors called him; but he
checked himself, and only said:--

"I promise you I will learn again, by and by, all the lessons you give
me, only let us be merry now."

Eric smiled; he felt that his pupil was having destroyed in him what
could never be repaired; but what could he do? The question indeed
passed through his mind whether he should not leave, now that all he
had so carefully planted and nurtured was taken and trampled under
foot; and only the thought that nothing would then stand between Roland
and destruction kept him at his difficult post. Still he considered it
his duty to communicate his anxiety to Sonnenkamp, who comforted him by
saying that American youths were ripe in years, and masters of their
own lives, when Germans would be still sitting on a bench at school,
and grieving under a master's criticism.

"I fear," said Eric, "that Roland is losing the best possession that
man can win."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He should learn above all things to find his best pleasures in
himself."

"So you would like to make a scholar of him, a man who can boil his own
coffee?"

"You understand me very well, and I understand your joke. You know that
what I mean to say is this, that the man who can find no pleasure
within himself will find none in the worl