"I shall never be of any different opinion," the young girl said, indifferently; then seating herself at her sewing-table, she took up a book and began to read.
The superintendent paced impatiently up and down the room; at length he paused before his daughter.
"What thick volume is that I see constantly in your hands? Is it a grammar, and are you studying French so very diligently?"
"No, papa; grammar is a very tiresome study to me. At present I am studying the 'History of Ancient Germany.'"
"Studying what?" asked the superintendent, scarcely believing his ears.
"The History of Ancient Germany," repeated Gretchen, emphatically. "It is an excellent work, full of the profoundest learning. Would you like to read it? Here is the first volume."
"Don't bother me with your Ancient Germany!" exclaimed the superintendent. "I have all I can do with ancient Slavonia. How do you come by such learned rubbish? Doctor Fabian must have lent you the book; but that is not according to agreement: he promised to teach you French, and instead of doing so, he brings you musty old books out of his library, not a word of which you understand."
"I understand every word," retorted the young girl, angrily. "And this is not a musty old book; it is an entirely new work, and Doctor Fabian himself wrote it. It is creating a great sensation in the literary world, and two of our greatest scholars, Professors Weber and Schwarz, are having a controversy about the book and its author. You will very soon see that he has become a greater man than either of them."
"Schwarz?" said the superintendent, thoughtfully. "That must be our assessor's celebrated uncle at the university of J----. Doctor Fabian may consider himself fortunate if his books attract even the hostile attention of so renowned a man."
"Professor Schwarz knows nothing at all," declared Gretchen, with the infallibility of an academic judge. "He will disgrace himself as much by his criticism of Fabian's book, as the assessor did by his attempted arrest of our young landlord. You might know they were uncle and nephew--for they are both fools!"