as creeping over me, so
that, to steady myself, I had to lay my hand on a chair. "Won't you sit
down?" said she, in a voice fully as much command as invitation. She
pointed to a chair a little distance from her own, and I obeyed.

The company appeared now somewhat ashamed of its rude display
of merriment, and seeing how quietly and calmly I bore
myself,--unresentingly too,--there seemed something like a reaction in
my favor. Foreigners, it must be said, are generally sorry when betrayed
into any exhibition of ill-breeding, and hastily seek to make amends for
it Perhaps Herr Oppovich himself was the least ready in this movement,
for he continued to look on me with a strange blending of displeasure
and amusement.

The business of breakfast was now resumed, and the servants passed round
with the dishes, helping me amongst the rest. While I was eating, I
heard--what, of course, was not meant for my ears--an explanation
given by one of the company of my singular appearance. He had lived in
England, and said that the English of every condition had a passion for
appearing to belong to some rank above their own; that to accomplish
this there was no sacrifice they would not make, for these assumptions
imposed upon those who made them fully as much as on the public they
were made for. "You 'll see," added he, "that the youth there, so long
as he figures in that fine dress, will act up to it, so far as he
knows how. He talked with a degree of assurance and fluency that gained
conviction, and I saw that his hearers went along with him, and there
soon began--very cautiously and very guardedly, indeed--a sort of
examination of me and my pretensions, for which, fortunately for me, I
was so far prepared.

"And do all English boys of your rank in life speak and read four
languages?" asked Herr Ignaz, after listening some time to my answers.

"You are assuming to know his rank, papa," whispered Sara, who watched
me closely during the whole interrogatory.

"Let him answer my question," rejoined the old man, roughly.

"Perhaps not all," said I, half amused at the puzzle I was becoming to
them.

"Then how came it your fortune to know them,--that is, if you _do_ know
them?"

Slipping out of his question, I replied, "Nothing can be easier than
to test that point. There are gentlemen here whose acquirements go far
beyond mine."

"Your German is very good," said Sara. "Let me hear you speak French."

"It is too much honor for me,"