ds, and as they came running
up to take his hand or hang on his arm we saw how they loved him.

But we had little time for observation. Barop, the head-master, was
already hastening down the steps, welcoming my mother and ourselves with
his deep, musical tones, in a pure Westphalian dialect.

ENTERING THE INSTITUTE.

Barop's voice sounded so sincere and cordial that it banished every
thought of fear, otherwise his appearance might have inspired boys of
our age with a certain degree of timidity, for he was a broad-shouldered
man of gigantic stature, who, like Middendorf, wore his grey hair parted
in the middle, though it was cut somewhat shorter. A pair of dark eyes
sparkled under heavy, bushy brows, which gave them the aspect of clear
springs shaded by dense thickets. They now gazed kindly at us, but later
we were to learn their irresistible power. I have said, and I still
think, that the eyes of the artist, Peter Cornelius, are the most
forceful I have ever seen, for the very genius of art gazed from them.
Those of our Barop produced no weaker influence in their way, for they
revealed scarcely less impressively the character of a man. To them,
especially, was clue the implicit obedience that every one rendered him.
When they flashed with indignation the defiance of the boldest and most
refractory quailed. But they could sparkle cheerily, too, and whoever
met his frank, kindly gaze felt honoured and uplifted.

Earnest, thoroughly natural, able, strong, reliable, rigidly just, free
from any touch of caprice, he lacked no quality demanded by his arduous
profession, and hence he whom even the youngest addressed as "Barop"
never failed for an instant to receive the respect which was his due,
and, moreover, had from us all the voluntary gift of affection, nay, of
love. He was, I repeat, every inch a man.

When very young, the conviction that the education of German boys was
his real calling obtained so firm a hold upon his mind that he could not
be dissuaded from giving up the study of the law, in which he had made
considerable progress at Halle, and devoting himself to pedagogy.

His father, a busy lawyer, had threatened him with disinheritance if he
did not relinquish his intention of accepting the by no means brilliant
position of a teacher at Keilhau; but he remained loyal to his choice,
though his father executed his threat and cast him off. After the old
gentleman's death his brothers and sisters volunta