"I do not know; it seems to me as if I should always do it."
"Even when they are learning Latin and Greek?"
"I learn Latin with them now; why should I not learn Greek too?"
"Greek is so desperately hard; I tell you, Paula, the irregular verbs--no human creature can learn them unless it be gymnasium professors, and I never can believe that they are exactly men."
"That is one of your jokes, which you must not let Benno hear: he wants to be a teacher."
"I think I will get that notion out of his head."
"Do not do so. Why should he not be a teacher if he has a liking for it, and talent enough? I do not know anything more delightful than to teach any one something which I believe to be good and useful to him. And then it is a good position for one in Benno's circumstances. I have heard it said that when one makes no great pretensions, he can soon secure a modest sufficiency. My father, it is true, has other views: he would like Benno to be a physician or naturalist. But these are expensive professions to learn; and although my father always takes a hopeful view--but I am not sure that he always does."
Paula bent her head over her sketching-board, and went on with her drawing more assiduously than ever; but I saw that once or twice she raised her handkerchief to her eyes. It gave me pain to see it. I knew what anxiety, and that too well-founded, Paula felt for her father's health, whom she loved devotedly.
"Fräulein Paula," I said.
She did not correct me this time--perhaps did not hear me.