Ottilia and I exchanged a grave look. The gentleness of the old time was
sweet to us both: but we had the wish that my father's extravagant
prominency in it might be forgotten.

At the dinner-table I made the acquaintance of the Herr Professor Dr.
Julius von Karsteg, tutor to the princess, a grey, broad-headed man,
whose chin remained imbedded in his neck-cloth when his eyelids were
raised on a speaker. The first impression of him was, that he was
chiefly neck-cloth, coat-collar, grand head, and gruffness. He had not
joined the ceremonial step from the reception to the dining saloon, but
had shuffled in from a side-door. No one paid him any deference save the
princess. The margravine had the habit of thrumming the table thrice as
soon as she heard his voice: nor was I displeased by such an exhibition
of impatience, considering that he spoke merely for the purpose of
snubbing me. His powers were placed in evidence by her not daring to
utter a sarcasm, which was possibly the main cause of her burning
fretfulness.

I believe there was not a word uttered by me throughout the dinner that
escaped him. Nevertheless, he did his business of catching and worrying
my poor unwary sentences too neatly for me, an admirer of real force and
aptitude, to feel vindictive. I behaved to him like a gentleman, as we
phrase it, and obtained once an encouraging nod from the margravine. She
leaned to me to say, that they were accustomed to think themselves lucky
if no learned talk came on between the Professor and his pupil. The
truth was, that his residence in Sarkeld was an honour to the prince, and
his acceptance of the tutorship a signal condescension, accounted for by
his appreciation of the princess's intelligence. He was a man
distinguished even in Germany for scholarship, rather notorious for his