circle of friends, we always brought our
mother great bunches of flowers, and often beautiful stories, too; for
the tutor, Candidate Woltmann, was an excellent story-teller, and I
early felt a desire to share with those whom I loved whatever charmed
me.

It was from this man, who was as fond of the beautiful as he was of
children, that I first heard the names of the Greek heroes; and I
remember that, after returning from one of these walks, I begged my
mother to give us Schwab's Tales of Classic Antiquity, which was
owned by one of our companions. We received it on Ludo's birthday, in
September, and how we listened when it was read to us--how often we
ourselves devoured its delightful contents!

I think the story of the Trojan War made a deeper impression upon me
than even the Arabian Nights. Homer's heroes seemed like giant oaks,
which far overtopped the little trees of the human wood. They towered
like glorious snow mountains above the little hills with which my
childish imagination was already filled; and how often we played the
Trojan War, and aspired to the honor of acting Hector, Achilles, or
Ajax!

Of Herr Liebe, our teacher, I remember only three things. On his
daughter's birthday he treated us to cake and wine, and we had to sing
a festal song composed by himself, the refrain of which changed every
year:

"Clara, with her fair hair thick,
Clara, with her eyes like heaven,
Can no more be called a chick,
For to-day she's really seven."

I remember, too, how when she was eight years old we had to transpose
the words a little to make the measure right. Karl von Holtei had a
more difficult task when, after the death of the Emperor Francis (Kaiser
Franz), he had to fit the name of his successor, Ferdinand, into the
beautiful "Gotterhalte Franz den Kaiser," but he got cleverly out of the
affair by making it "Gott erhalte Ferdinandum."--[God save the Emperor
Francis.]

My second recollection is, that we assisted Herr Liebe, who was a
churchwarden and had the honour of taking up the collection, to sort
the money, and how it delighted us to hear him scold--with good reason,
too--when we found among the silver and copper pieces--as, alas!
we almost always did--counters and buttons from various articles of
clothing.

In the third place, I must accuse Herr Liebe of having paid very little
attention to our behaviour out of school. Had he kept his eyes open, we
might have been spare