Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/24

14 At the end of two years Margaret was the principal of the highest school in the city, at a salary nearly twice as large as her father's. But her ambition was not yet satisfied. She longed to be at the head of a school of her own, where she should be untrammeled in all respects, and free to carry out her own theories. This was her one air-castle, and, with a view to this, she planned all her life. Three hours every day she spent in hard study or reading. Only the best of constitutions could have borne such a strain; but Margaret had come, on her mother's side, of an indomitable New England stock. It was in carrying out this scheme of educating herself more perfectly that Margaret had come to live in Wilhelm Reutner's house. Wilhelm's two little daughters had been in her first school. They were singularly gentle and well-bred children, and held themselves always a little aloof from their companions. One day Margaret discovered accidentally that they spoke both German and French fluently. "How is this, little ones," she said; "who taught you so many languages?

"Oh, papa always speaks to us in German, and mamma in French," said they.

"And Uncle Karl too," added the youngest, with a sad face. "Uncle Karl that has gone to the war."

That afternoon Margaret walked home with the children from school. As they drew near a block