, vehemently, "he is not a poor, miserable
creature. You may hate him, but you dare not outrage the noble, the
good, and just man!"

"He is a good-for-nothing fellow," cried her father; "he has tried to
win a minor behind the parents' back. He is a shameful, good-for-nothing
seducer."

"He is dishonorable," cried the general's wife--"a dishonorable man, who
has misused our confidence. We confided to him our daughter to teach,
and paid him for it. He improved the opportunity to make a declaration
of love, and stole the time from us to infatuate the heart of our
daughter with flattery, and from his pupil win a bride."

"Oh, unworthy, shameful slander!" cried Marie, her eyes flashing with
anger. "You well know that it is a vile scandal, that Moritz was no
paid teacher. If he had been--if he had felt obliged to yield to the sad
necessity of being paid for his valuable time, because he was poor, and
forced to live by his intellect, he was a free man, and had the right
to love whom he chose. He loves me, and I have accepted his love as the
most precious, most beautiful, and most glorious gift of my life. Ah!
do not look so angry with me, father; I cannot say otherwise. I cannot
crush or deny the inmost life of my life.--Oh, mother, forgive me that
I cannot change it! You know that otherwise I have been a most obedient
daughter to you in all things, although you have never taught me the
happiness of possessing a loving mother; though neither of you could
ever forgive your only child for not being a son, who could inherit your
name, and win a brilliant position, yet I have always loved you tenderly
and truly, and never complained that the unwelcome daughter received
neither love nor tenderness, only indifference and coldness from her
parents."

"Beautiful, very beautiful!" replied the mother, contemptuously.
"Now you wish to blame us that you are a heartless and thankless
daughter.--We have not understood her heart, and it is our fault that
her love has flown somewhere else.

"This is the language of romance. I have, indeed, read it in the
romances of Herr Moritz, and my daughter has only repeated what she
learned as a docile pupil from her schoolmaster. Very fine, to pay Herr
Moritz to form our daughter into the heroine of a romance! She ought to
have learned the languages, but has learned only the language of
romances."

"You are very severe and very cruel, mother," said Marie, sadly. "I
would not complain, only excus