The old head-master was suddenly retired, and one of the best educators summoned in his place man who quickly succeeded in making the decaying Kottbus School one of the most excellent in all Prussia.

I had the misfortune of being for more than two years a pupil under the government of the first head-master, and the good luck of spending nearly the same length of time under the charge of his successor.
My mother was satisfied with the result of the examination, and the next afternoon she drove with me to our relatives at Komptendorf.

Frau von Berndt, the youngest daughter of our beloved kinsman, Moritz von Oppenfeld, united to the elegance of a woman reared in a large city the cordiality of the mistress of a country home.

Her husband won the entire confidence of every one who met the gaze of his honest blue eyes.

He had given up the legal profession to take charge of his somewhat impoverished paternal estate, and soon transformed it into one of the most productive in the whole neighbourhood.
He was pleased that I, a city boy, knew so much about field and forest, so at my very first visit he invited me to repeat it often.
The next morning I took leave of my mother, and my school life began.