her husband this had
rarely and slightly shown itself, but in Eric it was more active; he
had that haughty self-reliance which makes a man unwilling to thank any
one but himself for his position and power.

She had never repented leaving her own class to marry her husband, she
had been too happy for that; but she saw in Eric's position something
like a grievous consequence of her own act. Moved by these thoughts,
which she never expressed, she said,--

"I can easily understand how you feel drawn to this American; there is
the greatest honor in being a self-made man. Let us unite the two plans
then. You can bring it about, since the boy is in your hands, that the
American shall entrust him to you, and you can at the same time
maintain an independent position."

Eric replied that his objection to the situation did not consist simply
in his receiving it as a favor; the task of conducting foreign visitors
of princely rank through the art-collections was distasteful to him; he
did not think that he could conform himself to it.

Suddenly his mother remembered that a letter had come for him, and she
gave it to him. It was from Clodwig. The noble man placed at Eric's
disposal twice the sum that he had asked for. Eric was made happy by
this news, and his mother nodded with hearty assent when he said that
the gift rejoiced him, but still more did the assurance that his
confidence in men had met with so glorious a confirmation.

Midnight was past, and mother and son still sat together. Eric begged
his mother to go to bed and leave him to wait for Sonnenkamp's reply.
He sat long alone in the night, thinking over all which had passed,
till sleep overcame him.

In the spirits of men, as well as in the history of nations, thoughts
and sentiments are formed which are to be brought into action from
their own free will, when suddenly there comes an over-mastering fact,
which converts the free choice into an inevitable necessity. Thus
Eric's entrance into Sonnenkamp's household seemed to have been made an
unavoidable necessity by Roland's rash step.

Eric went again, with scarcely audible steps, into the boy's room. So
wholly was his spirit turned toward him that the sleeping child moaned,
"Eric," but soon, turning over, slept soundly again.

Eric went back to the sitting-room, and then it first occurred to him
that there was no night-watch at the telegraph office in Sonnenkamp's
neighborhood; the father could not receive the new