"I will conduct you through all the apartments, but the spirit of my institution you must also learn. The rooms are a little confined; one must do the best one can in a town. But as far as the spirit is concerned, I may surely say that on the wings of freedom it soars above the commonplace into the atmosphere of most refined cultivation. Look at the daughters of the educated classes in our town; they quite fulfil the name which it enjoys as the beacon of the East. And this, to a great extent, is my humble merit. My pupils interest themselves in every question of life; I have awakened the feeling for it within them. Enlightenment--no obscurity--is my watchword. There must be no veil for the mind."
The mistress commenced her round with her guests. At that moment one of the lower classes was rushing out for a few moments to enjoy the fresh air in the garden, which consisted of a small patch of gravel and an arbour.
It was a wild troop that clattered down the stairs, and did not allow itself to be disturbed by Fräulein Sohle's cries.
"I will keep better order," said Lori softly, but with decision, to her companion.
First the rooms of the pupils were subjected to inspection; they were not inelegantly furnished, but small, and considerable disorder reigned within them. Several of the elder fair creatures had used their beds for a short afternoon nap; cushions and coverlets were therefore in a chaotic condition, and the emblems of future rule, the little slippers, lay isolated about the room, just as they had been thrown from the tiny feet.
Here and there upon writing tables lay open books, which were treated by Fräulein Sohle with much discretion, while Lori cast her eyes coolly upon the essays, and pretended to discover from the superscriptions of letters which were begun, that there must be several cousins in the school, who were on friendly terms with absent ones, and she was touched at the assurances of affection that prevailed between these loving relatives.
Upon one table Lori even espied a glove, which upon most scientific examination and measurement she pronounced to be a gentleman's which had come there by some mistake. Any lady at least to whom such a glove belonged might have exhibited herself amongst female giants at a fair. All these discoveries she imparted confidentially to her brother-in-law.
Fräulein Sohle extolled the improving private reading of her young ladies, and pointed to Schiller, Herder and the "Hours of Devotion," which looked down, in elegant bindings, from small, hanging book-shelves.
"Fénélon," too, and other French writings of honourable renown, stood side by side. But Lori, with her talent for research, that would have especially qualified her for archaeological unearthings, discovered amongst some fine needlework and knitting materials less elegant books from a circulating library. Amongst them were "The Sorrows of a Prince's Aspasia," "The Student and the Pin," "The Fatal Wanderings of Knight Hugo von Schauerthal."
One young lady, who studied French with peculiar zeal, had a volume of "Paul de Kock" lying beside "George Sand" under her embroidery frame, upon which a Madonna with the Holy Child was being laboriously worked in many wools.