s with her handkerchief pressed to her
face that she walked down the gallery, and so round to the great
staircase. No one looked at her as she passed so woefully by; they were
all only too well used to such sights. But before she reached the front
door she managed to pull herself together, and was able to give the
jolly little Boy Scout a friendly farewell nod.

CHAPTER XXI

Early that afternoon, after her mother had left the Trellis House, Rose
went upstairs to her own room. She had been working very hard all that
morning, helping to give some last touches of prettiness and comfort to
the fine, airy rooms at "Robey's," which had now been transformed into
Sir Jacques Robey's Red Cross Hospital. As a matter of fact, everything
had been ready for the wounded who, after having been awaited with
anxious impatience for weeks, were now announced as being due to arrive
to-morrow.

Meanwhile Anna, her hands idle for once, sat at her kitchen table. She
was wearing her best black silk apron, and open in front of her was her
_Gesangbuch_, or hymnbook.

Thus was Anna celebrating the anniversary of her husband's death. Gustav
Bauer had been a very unsatisfactory helpmeet, but his widow only chose
to remember now the little in him that had been good.

Calmly she began reading the contents of her hymnbook to herself. All
the verses were printed as if in prose, which of course made it easier
as well as pleasanter to read.

As she spoke the words to herself, her eyes filled with tears, and she
longed, with an intense, wordless longing, to be in the Fatherland,
especially now, during this strange and terrible time. She keenly
resented not being able to write to her niece, Minna, in Berlin. Since
her happy visit there three years before, that little household had been
very near her heart, nearer far than that of her own daughter, Louisa.
But Louisa was now to all intents and purposes an Englishwoman.

It was too true that the many years she had been in England had not made
good old Anna think better of English people, and, as was natural, her
prejudices had lately become much intensified. She lived in a chronic
state of wonder over the laziness, the thriftlessness, and the dirt of
Englishwomen. She had described those among whom she dwelt to her niece
Minna in the following words: "They wash themselves from head to foot
each day, but more never. Their houses are dreadful, and linen have they
not!"

Those words had repres