you?" He sank down in a chair by the table, and leaning
forward, repeated his question eagerly.

"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."

"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and
embarrassing you, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I wonder if you are not more afraid of being frightened and embarrassed
than of any other earthly trial. There are worse things that come to us,
Miss d'Estree. But I will arrange about the German, and you need have no
terror. How will I arrange? No matter--when Mrs. Hollenbeck asks you to
join a class in German, you will join it, will you not?"

"Oh, yes."

"You promise?"

"Oh, anything."

"Anything? take care. I may fill up a check for thousands, if you give a
blank."

"I didn't give a blank; anything about German's what I meant."

"Ah, that's safer, but not half so generous. And yet you're one who
might be generous, I think."

"But tell me about the German class."

"I've nothing to tell you about it," he answered, "only that you've
promised to learn."

"But where are we to say our lessons, and what books are we to Study?"

"Would you like to say a lesson now and get one step in advance of all
the others?"

"O yes! I shall need at least as much grace as that."

"Then say this after me: 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH
LEHREN.' Begin. 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--"

"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--but what does it mean?"

"Oh, that is not important. Learn it first. Can you not trust me? 'ICH
WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN.'"

"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--ah, you look as if my pronunciation were
not good."

"I was not thinking of that; you pronounce very well. 'ICH WILL ALLES
LERNEN--'"

"ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN:--there _now_, tell me
what it means."

"Not until you learn it; _encore une fois_."

I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it alone, I
made invariably some error.

"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his pocket,
tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it. "There--keep the paper and
study it, and say it to me in the morning."

I have the paper still; long years have passed: it is only a crumpled
little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and emptier to me
if it were destroyed.

I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for word,
and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in the hall. I
knew Richard's step very well, and gave a littl