otence of the great ship. Every one of them seemed to be violently
pro-Ally, derisively conjecturing the feelings of the _Vaterland_ as
every day under her very nose British ships arrived and departed and
presently arrived again,--the same ships she had seen depart coming back
unharmed, unhindered by her country's submarines. Only the two German
ladies, once more ignoring their American allegiance, looked angry. It
was incredible to them, simply _unfassbar_ as they said in their
thoughts, that any nation should dare inconvenience Germans, should dare
lay a finger, even the merest friendliest detaining one, on anything
belonging to the mighty, the inviolable Empire. Well, these Americans,
these dollar-grubbing Yankees, would soon get taught a sharp, deserved
lesson--but at this point they suddenly remembered they were Americans
themselves, and pulled up their thoughts violently, as it were, on their
haunches.

They turned, however, bitterly to the Twinkler girl as she pushed her
way through to her sister,--those renegade Junkers, those contemptible
little apostates--and asked her, after hearing her question to
Anna-Felicitas, with an extraordinary breaking out of pent-up emotion
where she, then, supposed she would have been at that moment if it
hadn't been for Germany.

"Not here I think," said Anna-Rose, instantly and fatally ready as she
always was to answer back and attempt what she called reasoned
conversation. "There wouldn't have been a war, so of course I wouldn't
have been here."

"Why, you wouldn't so much as have been born without Germany," said the
lady whose hair came off, with difficulty controlling a desire to shake
this insolent and perverted Junker who could repeat the infamous English
lie as to who began the war. "You owe your very existence to Germany.
You should be giving thanks to her on your knees for her gift to you of
life, instead of jeering at this representative--" she flung a finger
out toward the _Vaterland_--"this patient and dignified-in
-temporary-misfortune representative, of her power."

"I wasn't jeering," said Anna-Rose, defending herself and clutching at
Anna-Felicitas's sleeve to pull her away.

"You wouldn't have had a father at all but for Germany," said the other
lady, the one whose hair grew.

"And perhaps you will tell me," said the first one, "where you would
have been _then_."

"I don't believe," said Anna-Rose, her nose in the air, "I don't
believe I'd have ever been