"Mrs. Rollmaus," assented the Professor. "But this lady is in reality very clever," he added.
"Heaven grant," said Ilse, "that she may be equally true-hearted! But I feel terrified at her learning. I like the other ladies, and the husbands still better. There is something noble about almost all of them, they converse wonderfully well, they are unconstrained and seem to have real inward happiness and gladness of heart; and naturally so, for they hover over the earth like your gods of old, and, therefore, they may well be cheerful. Ah! and there was the patched smoking jacket which dear Professor Raschke wore--moth and rust will never eat that! When I think that all these clever people have treated me with kindness and regard, solely on my husband's account, I do not know how I can thank you sufficiently. And now that I have been received into this new society, I can only ask that my entrance into it may be blessed."
"The husband stretched out his hand and drew her toward him; she clasped his head with her hands and bent over him.
"What are you working at now?" she asked, softly.
"Nothing very important; merely a treatise that I have to prepare every year for the University."
He then told her something of the contents of the work.
"And when that is finished, what then?"
"Then I must set about other tasks."
"And thus it goes on always from morning to evening, every year, till the eyes fail and the strength breaks," said Ilse piteously. "I have a great favor to ask of you to-day, Felix. Will you show me the books which you have written--all of them?"
"All that I still possess," said the Professor, and he collected books and treatises here and there from every corner.