Gradually the work began to have a great fascination for him, and he went to Arthur one day and asked for some assistance.
'Never too old to learn,' he said, 'and as the house is like a tomb without Maude, I have actually taken up German, but find it up-hill business without a teacher.

Will you help me ?' 'To be sure, to be sure,' Arthur cried, brightening up at once, and bringing out on the instant such a pile of books as appalled Frank and made him wish to withdraw his proposition.
But Arthur was eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over the German pronunciation, which he could not well master.

But he learned to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too, while he could understand nearly all Arthur said to him.
'Do you think I could get along in Germany ?' he asked his brother, one day.
'Certainly you could,' Arthur replied.

Do you think of going there?
If you do, go to Wiesbaden, and inquire for Gretchen--how she died, and where she was buried.

I should have gone long ago only I dreaded the ocean voyage so confoundedly, and then I forget so badly.