to leave the Fraeulein, who was a good woman, only a little too apt
to be hard on other women. But she had already been that very day and
deposited her warning at the police office; the busy time would be soon
over, and she should be glad to leave their service on All Saints' Day.
Then (he thought) she had felt inclined to cry, for she suddenly braced
herself up, and said, yes, she should be very glad; for somehow, though
they had been kind to her, she had been very unhappy at Heppenheim; and
she would go back to her home for a time, and see her old father and
kind stepmother, and her nursling half-sister Ida, and be among her own
people again.

I could see it was this last part that most of all rankled in Herr
Mueller's mind. In all probability Franz Weber was making his way back to
Heppenheim too; and the bad suspicion would keep welling up that some
lingering feeling for her old lover and disgraced playmate was making
her so resolute to leave and return to Altenahr.

For some days after this I was the confidant of the whole household,
excepting Thekla. She, poor creature, looked miserable enough; but the
hardy, defiant expression was always on her face. Lottchen spoke out
freely enough; the place would not be worth having if Thekla left it; it
was she who had the head for everything, the patience for everything;
who stood between all the under-servants and the Fraeulein's tempers. As
for the children, poor motherless children! Lottchen was sure that the
master did not know what he was doing when he allowed his sister to turn
Thekla away--and all for what? for having a lover, as every girl had who
could get one. Why, the little boy Max slept in the room which Lottchen
shared with Thekla; and she heard him in the night as quickly as if she
was his mother; when she had been sitting up with me, when I was so ill,
Lottchen had had to attend to him; and it was weary work after a hard
day to have to get up and soothe a teething child; she knew she had been
cross enough sometimes; but Thekla was always good and gentle with him,
however tired he was. And as Lottchen left the room I could hear her
repeating that she thought she should leave when Thekla went, for that
her place would not be worth having.

Even the Fraeulein had her word of regret--regret mingled with
self-justification. She thought she had been quite right in speaking to
Thekla for allowing such familiarities; how was she to know that the man
was an old fri