And Friedrich—­poor Friedrich!—­groaning inwardly at his sister’s indifference to her great opportunities for learning, would speculate to himself on the probable fate of each volume in the old schoolmaster’s library, which had been sold when he, Friedrich, was but three years old.  Thus, in these circumstances, the boy expressed his feelings with moderation when he said, “Our Marie is not clever, but also she is never wrong.”

If the schoolmaster was dead, however, Friedrich was not, nevertheless, friendless.  There was a certain bookseller in his native town, for whom in his spare time he ran messages, and who in return was glad to let him spend his playhours and half-holidays among the books in his shop.  There, perched at the top of the shelves on a ladder, or crouched upon his toes at the bottom, he devoured some volumes and dipped into others; but what he liked best was poetry, and this not uncommon taste with many young readers was with this one a mania.  Wherever the sight of verses met his eye, there he fastened and read greedily.

One day, a short time before my story opens, he found, in his wanderings from shelf to shelf, some nicely-bound volumes, one of which he opened, and straightway verses of the most attractive-looking metre met his eye, not, however, in German, but in a fair round Roman text, and, alas! in a language which he did not understand.  There were customers in the shop, so he stood still in the corner with his nose almost resting on the bookshelf, staring fiercely at the page, as if he would force the meaning out of those fair clear-looking verses.  When the last beard had vanished through the doorway, Friedrich came up to the counter, book in hand.

“Well, now?” said the comfortable bookseller, with a round German smile.

“This book,” said the boy; “in what language is it?”

The man stuck his spectacles on his nose, and smiled again.

“It is Italian, and these are the sonnets of Petrarch, my child.  The edition is a fine one, so be careful.”  Friedrich went back to his place, sighing heavily.  After a while he came out again.

“Well now, what is it?” said the bookseller, cheerfully.

“Have you an Italian grammar?”

“Only this,” said the other, as he picked a book from the shelf and laid it on the counter with a twinkle in his eye.  The boy opened it and looked up disappointed.

“It is all Italian,” said he.

“No, no,” was the answer; “it is in French and Italian, and was printed at Paris.  But what wouldst thou with a grammar, my child?”

The boy blushed as if he had been caught stealing, and said hastily—­

“I must read those poems, and I cannot if I do not learn the language.”

“And thou wouldst read Petrarch with a grammar,” shouted the bookseller; “ho! ho! ho!”

“And a dictionary,” said Friedrich; “why not?”

“Why not?” repeated the other, with renewed laughter.  “Why not?  Because to learn a language, my Friedrich, one must have a master, and exercises, and a phrase-book, and progressive reading-lessons with vocabulary; and, in short, one must learn a language in the way everybody else learns it; that is why not, my Friedrich.”