lara, concerning whom he had inquired, that I
began to hope he was on my side.

Unfortunately, the end of his speech destroyed all the prospects held
out in the beginning.

Space forbids further description of the discussion. The majority, spite
of the passionate hostility of the informer, voted not to expel me, but
to exclude me from the examination this time, and advise me to leave the
school. If, however, I preferred to remain, I should be permitted to do
so.

At the close of the session I was standing in the square in front of the
school when Professor Tzschirner approached, and I asked his permission
to leave school that very day. A smile of satisfaction flitted over his
manly, intellectual face, and he granted my request at once.

So my Kottbus school-days ended, and, unfortunately, in a way unlike
what I had hoped. When I said farewell to Professor Tzschirner and his
wife I could not restrain my tears. His eyes, too, were dim, and he
repeated to me what I had already heard him say in the conference, and
wrote the same thing to my mother in a letter explaining my departure
from the school. The report which he sent with it contains not a single
word to indicate a compulsory withdrawal or the advice to leave it.

When I had stopped at Guben and said goodbye to Clara my dream was
literally fulfilled. Our delightful intercourse had come to a sudden
end. Fortunately, I was the only sufferer, for to my great joy I heard
a few months after that she had made a successful debut at the Dresden
court theatre.

I was, of course, less joyfully received in Berlin than usual, but the
letters from Professor Tzschirner and Frau Boltze put what had occurred
in the right light to my mother--nay, when she saw how I grieved over
my separation from the young girl whose charms still filled my heart and
mind, her displeasure was transformed into compassion. She also saw
how difficult it was for me to meet the friends and guardian who had
expected me to return as a graduate, and drew her darling, whom for the
first time she called her "poor boy," still closer to her heart.

Then we consulted about the future, and it was decided that I should
graduate from the gymnasium of beautiful Quedlinburg. Professor
Schmidt's house was warmly recommended, and was chosen for my home.

I set out for my new abode full of the best resolutions. But at
Magdeburg I saw in a show window a particularly tasteful bonnet trimmed
with lilies of the valle