The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her anxiety. "We say 'ach!"

Anna laughed.

"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of Fuerst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my husband was a younger son."

Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I—I wish——" and then stopped.

"What do you wish, my dear child?"

"I wish—that I—that you——"

"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, even on trial," was the prompt reply.

Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not."

"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at her remembrances.

"Yes," said Anna, under her breath.

"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by one's birth."

"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice.

"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of the way—dead."

"Married," whispered Anna.

"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone.

"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet said to the most intimate of her friends.

She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and she blushed.

The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be."

This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, "because you have had much the same experiences that I have."

"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if many of the ladies answered both advertisements?"

"No, they did not."

"Not one?"

"Not one."

The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and your—your friends and yourself."

"But I want someone who will do everything—order the meals, train the servants—everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better than this.

"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are paid?"

"Would you not prefer——" began Anna, and hesitated.

"Would I not prefer what, my child?"

"Prefer to—would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if you will stay here as—as one of the others."

The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big person.

"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of."

"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three months."

An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You will not regret it," she said emphatically.

But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening.



CHAPTER XIII

What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in its three forms feine, buergerliche, and Hausmannskost, in all which forms she was preeminent in skill—she would have mused, that is, on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes—also a form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his mother's Dettingen blood that the first [German: Fuerst] Penheim owed the energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German Hausfrau, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be received.

Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, sometimes not one would be left.

At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies belonging to the buergerliche or middle classes were in her eyes wholly unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the Buergerlichen, those belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of them was buergerlich.

"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience."

She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where all that was asked of them was that they should be happy.

"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the placid waters.

"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly interested.

They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens.

The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she recommended cookery books.

"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised.

"Es ist egal—it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other reading affords me the same pleasure."

"But only when you want something new cooked."

"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess.

Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that period she was greatly attached.

The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a Buergerliche?

About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest.

Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. "To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her flower-like face to the flowers.

"The first three come this afternoon."

"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling.

"I never was so happy before."

"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple life here."

"Did he talk about me to you?"

"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time."

"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she remembered perfectly, had urged two things—the leading of the better life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was subject to errors of judgment.

"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their joyousness.

"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters."

"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its disagreeableness."

"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself."

"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she marries into, especially if they are unpleasant."

"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed."

"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, shaking his head.

"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed.

"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe disappointed—it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as disappointed.

"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a Fraeulein Kuhraeuber."

Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," he said. "What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?"

"Nothing at all. What should she say?"

It was Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned the pursing of the princess's lips.

"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at cards. And one of his sisters—oh, well, some of them are harmless, I believe."

"Thank you."

"You are angry with me?"

"Very."

"And why?"

"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at least, and have peace."

"Miss Letty, is your aunt often—what is the word—so fractious?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people can't stand much just about then."

"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!"

"Stuff," said Letty, offended.

"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and go."

"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly so when she was hungry.

"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road.

"But you are angry with me."

She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?"

"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing.

"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich."

"And Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhraeuber.

"And Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," repeated Axel gravely.

"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping off the black."

"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as happy as you are yourself."

"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, as she crossed over to the house and he rode away.



CHAPTER XIV

Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. "The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under the circumstances."

Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine.

Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say in a voice that trembled, "Guten Tag."

"Guten Tag," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann.

Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "Es freut mich so—es freut mich so," she murmured incoherently.

"Ach—you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German.

"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so very happy to see you."

Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the least like crying.

"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness Elmreich?"

"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "I am Baroness Elmreich."

Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and apologetic, and made deep curtseys.

Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "so reizend—so gluecklich—so erfreut——" and fill in the gaps with happy, quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand within her reach.

Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was rude to stare like that.

Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last shaken hands with.

"Ah—she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely here, naturally."

"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and giving them to Letty to carry round.

"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I see."

"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here—so pure, and full of the sea."

"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?"

"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April."

Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was going to behave as though they were her dear friends—which indeed, she assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed.

Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her head and murmured "Ja, eben." She was obviously ill at ease, and dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her effort to pick them up again.

"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid things—much too big for the sugar-basin."

"Ja, eben," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare at the Fraeulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the correspondence about her age. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was also thirty-five, and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite forgot," she said cheerfully—the amount of cheerfulness she put into her voice made her laugh at herself—"I quite forgot to introduce you to each other."

"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found ourselves all entering your carriage."

"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness.

"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we are connected with nearly everybody."

The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, was connected with Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, who buried her face in her cup, in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for connections.

But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as Stuetze der Hausfrau. These Stuetze, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the children—being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But Fraeulein Kuhraeuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms.

When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of the paternal Kuhraeuber, "gegenwaertig mit Gott," as she put it, expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just that which made her happiest.

It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the society of persons with von before their names, produced such mingled feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over her coffee—all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention.

It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest in the awkwardness of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.

Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden garden, and the creaking of a distant pump.

"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver.

"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from everything. There was always something going on in the yard—always life and noises."

"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible.

"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again.

"Ja, eben," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.

"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, but look at the colour of the grass and the water."

"Ach—you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you paint?"

"I wish I could."

"Ah, then you sing—or play?"

"I can do neither."

"So? But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of pastimes?"

"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy being alive."

Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "Ach so."

There was another silence.

"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that Ach so.

"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than old ones."

At this speech Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's four cups became plainly written on her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty cup—too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on to the floor and was broken. "Ach, Herr Je!" she cried in her distress.

The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on the lips of gentle-women.

"Oh, it does not matter—really it does not," Anna hastened to assure her. "Don't pick it up—Letty will. The table is too small really. There is no room on it for anything."

"Ja, eben," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, greatly discomfited.

"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von Treumann.

"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little smile expressive of patient endurance.

"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. "No, no—let Letty pick up the pieces——" for the Fraeulein, in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak.

Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said over her shoulder to the others.

And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a person called Kuhraeuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be their private objections to each other, they had one point already on which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.



CHAPTER XV

As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll in money. And the wall-paper—how unpractical! It is so light that every mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month."

She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her.

Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the writing-table—hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room—and she wondered what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the Gartenlaube, she never read.

On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by imagining herself in their place. "Sonderbar," was the baroness's comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid.

She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she had entrapped into her house.

The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants."

But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very wonderful things to have—before she had grown so thin she almost had one herself.

"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more complicated speech.

"Bitte," said the baroness, with the smile the French call pince.

"Has no one been to unpack your things?"

"I rang."

"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do well in German. Can you speak English?"

"No."

"Nor understand it?"

"No."

"French?"

"No."

"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!"

Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks.

This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now—I'll send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it comfortably—only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to you who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor sufficient German.

She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, and that you are going to stay with me always."

The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your Frau Mama come to Germany?"

"My mother is dead."

"Ach—mine also. And the Herr Papa?"

"He is dead."

"Ach—mine also."

"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands—a trick of hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you wrote."

"None," said the baroness with a rigid look.

"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."

"You are very good."

"Oh, I am not good, only so happy—I have everything in the world that I have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all there is nothing more I can think of that I want."

"Ach," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or cousins, who would come and stay with you?"

"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they wouldn't like staying here with me at all."

"They would not like staying with you? How strange."

"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I can be in my own house."

"And your friends—they too will not come?"

"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."

"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that you should not be so lonely?"

"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived with."

"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"

"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have some of my nice things too."

"But not your own friends and relations?"

"They have everything they want."

There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She was thinking that this was a queer little person—outside, that is. Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people would call these questions rude.

But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full of doubts than ever.

When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. Then she opened the door softly and looked in.

These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart.

What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears.

"Oh—what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and hurrying in.

Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief.

"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness.

"Nichts, nichts," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock——"

"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already—surely there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you——"

Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing—you can do nothing," she said, and wept as she walked.

Anna watched her in consternation.

"See to what I have come—see to what I have come!" said the agitated lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have fallen so low!"

"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned.

"At my age—I, a Treumann—I, a geborene Graefin Ilmas-Kadenstein—to live on charity—to be a member of a charitable institution!"

"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went towards her with outstretched hands.

"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it is a home, a charitable home!"

"No, not a home like that—a real home, my home, your home—ein Heim," Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word Heim and the English word "home" have little meaning in common.

"Ein Heim, ein Heim," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary bitterness, "ein Frauenheim—yes, that is what it is, and everybody knows it."

"Everybody knows it?"

"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that the world was to think we were your friends——"

"And so you are."

"—your guests——"

"Oh, more than guests—this is home."

"Home! Home! Always that word——" And she burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von Treumann's sorrow and rage—for surely there was anger as well as sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom?

"You have told your servants——"

"My servants?"

"You have told them that we are objects of charity——"

"I——" began Anna, and then was silent.

"It is not true—I have come here from very different motives—but they think me an object of charity. I rang the bell—I cannot unstrap my trunks—I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while—your servant came—she was insolent—the trunks are there still unstrapped—you see them—she knows—everything."

"She shall go to-morrow."

"The others think the same thing."

"They shall go to-morrow—that is, have they been rude to you?"

"Not yet, but they will be."

"When they are, they shall go."

"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met—I met——"

"Who?"

"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling.

"But who did you meet?"

"I met—I met the Penheim."

"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?"

"You never said she was here——"

"I did not know that it would interest you."

"—living on charity—she was always shameless—I was at school with her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, she will write to all her friends that I am here too—I told them I was coming only on a visit to you—they knew I knew your uncle—but the Penheim—the Penheim——" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision.

The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fraeulein Kuhraeuber—in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fraeulein Kuhraeuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still.

"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, and really I have found her nothing but good and kind."

"Ach, she is shameless—she recoils before no degradation!" burst out Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken the old Fuerst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no decency——"

"But is it not admirable——" began Anna.

"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will spare me?"

"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming to live with me and be my dear friend?"

"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed afresh.

"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here."

"Ach, I know her—she will do it all the same."

"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that—that you and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here."

Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "Ach? She has found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?"

"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be unkind and make mischief for worlds."

"Ach so!" said Frau von Treumann, "ach so-o-o-o!"—a long drawn out so of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the kleine Adel. Well, well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the housekeeper. Well, well.

She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain things the bravest cannot bear."

"Yes," said Anna.

"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than death."

"But I don't see any disgrace."

"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite simple—you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was how my son looked at it. He said 'Liebe Mama, she evidently needs friends and sympathy—why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother officers adore him."

"Really?" said Anna.

"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the whole regiment. I will show you his photograph—ach, the trunks are still unstrapped."

"I'll go and send someone—but not Marie," said Anna, getting up quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen."

"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and forbid the Penheim to gossip?"

"I shall tell the princess your wishes."

"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had not pressed me to come here I really do not think——"

Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit altogether; she was afraid lest the Fraeulein should be in some unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already broken, and the Fraeulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its image with that consoling sentence, Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected that she would need its reassurance so soon.

She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the contents were all put away and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, washed and combed and in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other.

"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of her trio, "are you happy?"

Fraeulein Kuhraeuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible adelige Damen, her travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for the concoction of a very palatable life.

"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again hastily, for it was the cookery book.

"I read much," observed Fraeulein Kuhraeuber.

"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the cookery book was an accident.

"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone."

"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring.

"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read."

"Here are a great many more for you to read."

"Ach ja, ach ja," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, glancing doubtfully at the shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it—there are other things in life. I read only useful books."

"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like cookery books, I must get you some more."

"How good you are—how very, very good!" said the Fraeulein, gazing at the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. "This beautiful room—I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is really for me—for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have I done to deserve all this?"

What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to place, from one indignant Hausfrau to another, ever since she left school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it would only be just and right."

Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fraeulein's neck and kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can hardly be called by that pretty name.

"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell."

And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years.

"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply.



CHAPTER XVI

But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, the first evening of the new life was a disappointment. The Fraeulein, who entered the room so happily under the impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to Anna and ate Leberwurst in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul—what does it matter how she eats Leberwurst?" said Anna to herself. "What do such trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty.

There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,—the three German ladies clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left somehow to themselves, except for Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, who clung to them. To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with equal coldness.

As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the geborene Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother—that brother whose end was so abrupt—had been quartered once during the man[oe]uvres at Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like responsiveness when Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was in question.

Fraeulein Kuhraeuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual—so slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; there was something in the Fraeulein's looks and manner that made her think they would agree about Schiller.

Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and devoted herself more and more to her.

"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could not forgive those doors she had gone through last.

The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when she worked, at Anna.

"Fraeulein Kuhraeuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. "Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her."

"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness.

"She is very distinguished-looking."

A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and Miss Leech.

"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness.

"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess.

"Ach so," said the baroness.

"Ach so," said Frau von Treumann.

"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness.

"Oh no, quite old," said the princess.

"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?"

"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild surprise.

"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann.

"She is twenty-five," said the princess.

"Rather an old child," observed the baroness.

"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann.

"Yes—why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?"

"Miss Estcourt has not told me so."

"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head.

"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness.

"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?"

"Perfectly."

"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and paused.

No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. When I hesitated—for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience—he said, 'Liebste Mama, it would be a charity to go to the poor young lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as a good work.' And that decided me."

The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "Wirklich?" she said in a voice of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? Aber herrlich."

"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I regard it as a work of charity."

"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work.

"That is how I have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann."

"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear husband's death—you remember Karl, princess?"

"Perfectly."

"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters had not been so appealing."

"Ach—they were appealing?"

"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing to the widow—it was irresistible."

"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily."

"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough——"

"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, after all, no plough."

"Dear princess, you always were so literal."

"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?"

"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage."

"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!"

"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me feel ashamed of my own uselessness."

"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for her, and I hope to look after her as well."

"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my house."

"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I am here and able to give it."

"But she may any day turn round and request you to go."

"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe."

"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly.

"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of her heart?"

"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched."

Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better."

Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann were looking preternaturally bland.



CHAPTER XVII

Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant.

"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than usually pleased to see him.

"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw the letters, and thought you might want them."

"Oh, I don't want them—at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are only an excuse. Now isn't it so?"

"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing.

"You want to see the new arrivals."

"Not in the very least."

"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a pile!" Her face fell.

"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You have still the greater part of your work before you."

"I know. Why do you tell me that?"

"Because you do not seem pleased to get them."

"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies makes me feel—feel sleepy."

She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint ruefulness in the smile.

"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter of fact tone that they both laughed.

"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you got a brick-kiln at Lohm?"

"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?"

"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?"

"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely sand."

"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build one."

"Who? Dellwig?"

"Sh—sh."

"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any propositions of the kind hastily."

"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all."

"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of cutting down a lot of trees."

"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply refuse to consider it."

"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told me just now that it would double the value of the estate."

"I don't believe it."

"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor ladies."

"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said Axel with great positiveness.

Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, considering this phenomenon with apparent interest.

Axel laughed.

"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give anything to be men."

"And you are one of them?"

"Yes."

He laughed again.

"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an effort it is to me to say No to that man."

"What, to Dellwig?"

"Sh—sh."

"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident that the man must go."

"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?"

"I will, if you wish."

"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an old servant who has worked here so many years?"

"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my control."

"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted——"

"I do not believe there was much devotion."

"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle Joachim."

"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously.

"He did indeed."

"It was about something else, then."

"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him."

Axel looked profoundly unconvinced.

"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am frightened—dreadfully frightened—of possible scenes." And she looked at him and laughed ruefully. "There—you see what it is to be a woman. If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever came across."

"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?"

"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks—oh, how he talks! I believe he would convince even you."

"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she heard.

The baroness shut her door again immediately. "Aha—the admirer!" she said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking to a juenge Herr," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever.

"A juenge Herr?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was old?"

"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her work. "He often comes in."

"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile.

"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly.

"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness.

"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann.

"Yes, and she died."

"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married."

"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to us, and is single."

Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now confess, princess, that he is the perilous person from whom you think it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt."

"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about him."

"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?"

"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts."

"Ach so," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each other.

Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home."

"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel.

"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later.

"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an unusually severe and determined look on his own.

Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs."

"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his evening drink.

"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met him—he is always hanging about."

"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly.

"Pah—this petticoat government—having to beg and pray for the smallest concession—it makes an honest man sick."

"She will not consent?"

"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again from the beginning."

"She will not consent?"

"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her."

"Aber so was!" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?"

"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at me—I never can be sure that she is even listening."

"And then?"

"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me."

"And then?"

"She said oh nein, in her affected foreign way—in the sort of voice that might just as well mean oh ja." And he imitated, with great bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to her can always bring her round."

"Then you must be the last person."

"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that incomparable rhinoceros——"

"He wants to marry her, of course."

"If he marries her——" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at his muddy boots.

"If he marries her——" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her.

The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young mistress, that the thing was as good as built.

That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their neighbours—more exactly, the envy of their neighbours—was to them the very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been excluded—Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the Schloss without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau Dellwig's husband. "The Englaenderin will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer.