The consternation which this scene produced in the harmless company could not have been greater. They rose suddenly from their seats; they crowded around the sobbing poetess; they asked one another what was the matter with Mrs. Jager? and the professor if his wife was subject to such attacks? Nobody suspected the true cause of her condition, which the gentlemen tried to remedy by persuasion, and the ladies by Cologne water. But Primula would accept neither the one nor the other. After a few seconds she rose from her chair, declared decidedly that she must go home, and went out without saying good-by to any one, hanging on the arm of her husband, who had made a very foolish face during the whole scene.
At the moment when the company, extremely surprised by the disappearance of such honored guests, were still standing about in the sitting-room and discussing the facts, a letter was handed to Oswald, which, as the parlor-maid said, "a young man had brought, who was waiting for an answer."
Oswald opened the note, which contained only the words:
"Make haste and come away. I am waiting below.--Timm."
Oswald did not neglect such an admirable pretext to escape from a company which became every moment more and more intolerable to him. He said he had received news which required him to return home instantly. The next moment he had joined Timm in the street.
"Heaven be thanked that I could get away," he cried, seizing Timm, who was delighted to see him, by the arm, and dragging him with him.
"Thought so," said Mr. Timm, "thought you were suffering infernal pains; meant to help you, poor fellow. Come, let us wash down the learned dust which you have swallowed, with a bottle of golden wine."
Book Second.
CHAPTER I.
"The Boarding-School for Young Ladies," in the suburbs of Grunwald, was not exactly a house of correction for young girls who were incorrigible at home, as the students of Grunwald and other wicked people maintained; nor was the principal of the institution, Miss Amelia Bear--known as the She Bear--altogether the female dragon which malicious tongues represented her to be. It is true, no one could deny that during the day the curtains were almost invariably down in the windows looking upon the street, and that after nine o'clock in the evening no light was to be seen in the whole house. The boarders were never seen in public, except in solemn procession, walking two and two, and with a teacher at the head and a teacher at the end; no letter passed the threshold of the house, going out or coming in, which was not first subjected to a close scrutiny in Miss Bear's study, and stamped there, so to say, with the official seal; but these and similar regulations are either common to all "boarding-schools for young ladies," or there was, in certain cases, a special reason for them. The institution was intended for the "higher classes," whose female offspring was counted upon for its support; this meant almost exclusively the high nobility of the district, as the daughters of persons not noble rarely sought admission, and still more rarely found admission. Now it happens that young ladies of rank born and bred in the country, and enjoying the twofold privileges of country life and an exceptional social position, accustomed to manage from their twelfth year their ponies with the skill of circus-riders, and at thirteen often more familiar with the humbugs of society than other girls ever become--that such girls are not to be treated as leniently as other daughters of Eve. They are used to the society of busy idlers as their only male companions: young land-owners, officers on furlough, and other men of frequently very loose morals; and great is the danger, therefore, that this inborn and inbred sovereign haughtiness may bloom forth abundantly, and bear equivocal fruit, unless they are restrained in time and with method.