able attribute."

They went on for some time in silence, till presently the Professor
began again,--

"You are still young; you must not waste these morning hours of your
life. I warn you as your teacher and your father, yes in the very
spirit of your father. It is my right and my duty thus to speak, for
your father should serve you as a warning."

"My father serve me as a warning?"

"Yes. I need not remind you of the worth and importance of his labors,
but your father often lamented that he had allowed an unworthy regard
for his standing in society to interfere with his devotion to pure
knowledge; he could not resume the steadiness of his former habits of
study. More than that, he found himself thinking of persons while he
was writing, instead of thinking only of ideas, which is our religion.
If we lose that, we are the worst of idolaters; our idol is even less
than a picture in a temple; it is the most worthless of all idols, the
fickle voice of society."

Eric still remained silent, and the kindly old man began again,--

"Here is another proof of the wonderful connection of events. Our
clinical Professor had to overcome a strong repugnance on my part to
undertake this cure; neither of us knew that the real object of my
being sent here was, perhaps, to be a healing-spring to you."

"Indeed you are," exclaimed Eric, as he grasped his teacher's delicate
hand. Only for a little while longer, he said, till Roland had entered
upon whatever work should be next appointed him, he wanted to devote
himself entirely to his pupil; then he would return to the service of
pure knowledges.

The Professor warned him not to wait for that, for he should never lose
his hold of the world of ideas.

"Or if you mean to devote yourself to practical life," he added, "I
have nothing to say against that; only you must decide on one or the
other."

Eric returned to the hotel as one roused from a dream. He saw the
danger which threatened him, of seeking to shine in society by a
display of the thoughts and the knowledge he had acquired in the
studies which he now no longer pursued. The Professor had touched a
very different chord in him from what the Doctor had once stirred. He
took pleasure in making his old teacher better acquainted with Clodwig,
the Banker, Sonnenkamp, and particularly with Roland, whose lessons he
now resumed with an energy which filled the boy with amazement.

The Professor took especial pleasure in the society