e who attended the boy to school
or wherever he went, as one of our lackeys might, she still insisted
that he was a Russian. As Eric called attention to the fact, that the
maiden in the centre of the group clings to her mother Niobe and hides
her face in terror, while the boy by the side of his attendant
voluntarily turns toward the danger, and with outstretched hand strives
to avert it, Roland gazed fixedly upon him, and turned almost as white
as the plaster itself; his eye sparkled, and the soft dark hair just
beginning to show on lip and chin seemed to tremble. On the way home he
drew close to Eric, and trembling as if with cold said:--

"Do you remember when that letter with the great seal came to your
parent's house?"

"Certainly--certainly."

"Then you should have been director, and is it not strange, here stand
these figures day and night, summer and winter, waiting for us, and
keeping still, and looking on while we are dancing and dying."

"What are you talking of?" asked Eric, alarmed by Roland's strange tone
and manner.

"Oh, nothing--nothing. I don't know myself what I am saying. I seem to
be only hearing the words, and yet am really saying them. I don't know
what is the matter with me."

Eric hurried the feverish boy home.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND NIOBE'S SON.

Every day, whenever Frau Ceres saw Roland, she would say:--

"Why, Roland, how pale you look! Does he not look very pale?" Here she
invariably appealed to Eric, and upon his answering in the negative
seemed reassured.

But one day when the Mother exclaimed in terror:--

"Why, Roland, you do look so pale!" Eric could not deny it.

"I don't know what is the matter with me," he complained as Eric took
him to his chamber.

"Everything seems to be turning round me," he said as he looked about
the room.

"What does it mean? Oh! Oh!"

He sank down on a chair and burst into a sudden fit of weeping.

Eric stood amazed.

The boy seemed to lose consciousness, and, with his eyes wide open,
stared at Eric as if he did not see him.

"Roland, what is the matter?" asked Eric.

Roland did not answer; his head was like ice.

Eric gave a pull at the bell, and then bent over the boy again.

Sonnenkamp entered, to know why they did not come to dinner. Eric
pointed to Roland.

The father threw himself upon the lifeless form, and a piercing cry was
wrung from his breast.

Jo