uld be a
fitting guide to your son."

And now Eric gave utterance to his inmost feeling of unfitness for
being another's guide, and yet he must confess that no other person
could have a stronger inclination to be, only some other might perhaps
take it more easily. He unfolded from the very depths of his soul the
newly awakened longing to plunge into solitary meditation, and lamented
that one builds up an ideal of life and of work only to have it
shattered in pieces upon the rock of actual existence; but it was only
unvanquished self-seeking, for which his own thought, and not, the
world, was to blame.

"I am not learned--I don't understand you," Frau Ceres replied. "But
you speak so beautifully--you have such good expressions--I should like
always to hear you speak, even if I do not understand what you are
saying. But you will not let him know anything about my having sent for
you?"

"Him? Whom?" Eric wished to ask, but Frau Ceres raised herself up
hastily, and said,--

"He can be terrible--he is a dangerous man--no one knows it, no one
would imagine it. He is a dangerous man! Do you like me too?"

Eric trembled. What did that mean?

"Ah! I do not know what I am saying," continued Frau Ceres.

"He is right--I am only half-witted. Why did I send for you? Yes, now I
know. Tell me about your mother. Is she really a learned and noble
lady? I was also a noble lady--yes, I was one indeed."

A fresh shiver passed over Eric. Is this half lethargic, half raving
person really insane, and kept within bounds in society only by the
greatest care?

He had wished this very morning to write to his mother that he had come
into fairyland,--the fairy land was yet more marvellous than he had
himself fancied.

Eric depicted with extreme precision, as far as a son could, the
character of his mother; how she was always so very happy, because she
was contriving how to make others happy. He described the death of his
father, the death of his brother, and the greatness of soul with which
his mother endured all this.

Frau Ceres sobbed; then she said suddenly,--

"I thank you--I thank you!"

She extended her white hand to Eric, and kept saying,--

"I thank you! With all his money he has not been able to make me know
that I could weep once more. O, how much good it does me! Stay with
us--stay with Roland. He cannot weep--say nothing to him--I also should
like to have a mother. Stay with us. I shall never forget it of you--I
tha