“One single incident I remember which was not in accordance with her habitual reserve in this respect.  I noticed one day that her eyes were red.  Of course I dared not ask her why she had cried.  During the lesson she seemed absent; and when leaving she said, without looking at me, ’I may perhaps be obliged to interrupt our lessons for some little time; I am very sorry.  I wish you every happiness.’  Then, without raising her eyes, she quickly left the room.  I was bewildered.  What could her words mean?  And why had they been said in such an affectionate tone?

“The next day Francis Gilmore called to inform me, with his father’s compliments, that he was to have four days’ holidays, because his sister had just been betrothed to Mr. Howard, a wealthy New York merchant, and that, for the occasion, there would be great festivities at home.

“Thenceforward there was an end of the dreams which up to that moment had made life pleasant.  In sober reason I had no more cause to deplore Ellen’s marriage than to feel aggrieved because Grant had succeeded Johnson as President.  Nevertheless, you can scarcely conceive how much this affair—­I mean the marriage—­grieved me.  My absolute nothingness suddenly stared me in the face.  I saw myself as I was—­a mere schoolmaster, with no motive for pride in the past, or pleasure in the present, or hope in the future.”

Warren’s pipe had gone out while he was telling his story.  He cleaned it out methodically, drew from his pocket a cake of Cavendish tobacco, and, after cutting off with a penknife the necessary quantity, refilled his pipe and lit it.  The way in which he performed all these little operations betrayed long habit.  He had ceased to speak while he was relighting his pipe, and kept on whistling between his teeth.  Hermann looked on—­silently.  After a few minutes, and when the pipe was in good order, Warren resumed his story.

“For a few weeks I was terribly miserable; not so much because I had lost Ellen—­a man cannot lose what he has never hoped to possess—­as from the ruin of all my illusions.  During those days I plucked and ate by the dozen of the fruits of the tree of self-knowledge, and I found them very bitter.  I ended by leaving Elmira, to seek my fortunes elsewhere.  I knew my trade well.  Long practice had taught me how to make the best of my learning, and I never had any difficulty in finding employment.  I taught successively in upwards of a dozen States of the Union.  I can scarcely recollect the names of all the places where I have lived—­Sacramento, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Boston, New York; I have been everywhere—­ everywhere.  And everywhere I have met with the same rude schoolboys, just as I have found the same regular and irregular verbs in Latin and Greek.  If you would see a man thoroughly satiated and saturated with schoolboys and classical grammars, look at me.

“In the leisure time which, whatever might be my work, I still contrived to make for myself, I indulged in philosophical reflections.  Then it was I took to the habit of smoking so much.”