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 valley and moss-rose buds.  The sight brought Clara’s face framed in it vividly be fore my eyes, and drew me into the shop.  It was a Paris pattern-hat and very expensive, but I spent the larger part of my pocket-money in purchasing it and ordered it to be sent to the girl whose image still filled my whole soul.  Hitherto I had given her nothing except a small locket and a great many flowers.

CHAPTER XX.

AT THE QUEDLINBURG GYMNASIUM

The atmosphere of Quedlinburg was far different from that of the Mark factory town of Kottbus.  How fresh, how healthful, how stimulating to industry and out-door exercise it was!

Everything in the senior class was just as it should be.

In Kottbus the pupils addressed each other formally.  There were at the utmost, I think, not more than half a dozen with whom I was on terms of intimacy.  In Quedlinburg a beautiful relation of comradeship united all the members of the school.  During study hours we were serious, but in the intervals we were merry enough.