hardly have suspected that she was not a full-blooded American. Over
thirty years before, she had emigrated with her younger brother, when
the times were hard in Germany. Her father was dead, and her elder
brother, Leopold, was not yet out of his time, learning the trade of a
watch-maker. The younger brother went to the west, taking her with him,
and established himself on a farm. He was not very successful, and his
sister, at the age of twelve, went to live with an American family in
Chicago, the lady of which had taken a fancy to her. She was brought up
to work, though her education was not neglected. Before she was
twenty-one her brother in the west died. But by this time she was
abundantly able to take care of herself.

When the family in which she was so kindly cared for was broken up by
the death of the father, she went to work in the kitchen of a large
hotel, where she enlarged her knowledge and experience in the art of
cooking, till she was competent to take a situation as the cook of a
small public house. In this place she increased the reputation of the
establishment by her skill, till the proprietor was willing to pay her
any wages she demanded.

Peter Bennington, a native of Maine, was employed in the hotel; and he
was so well pleased with the looks of the German cook that he proposed
to her, and was accepted. Katharina Schlager spoke English then as well
as a native; and she was not only neat and skillful, but she was a
pretty and wholesome-looking woman. Peter married her, and, after a
while, bought out the hotel. But he was not successful in the venture;
and, with only a few hundred dollars in his pocket, he returned to
Rockhaven, his native place, where he soon opened the Cliff House.

Leopold was born in Chicago, and his mother had insisted upon naming him
after her brother in Germany.

Mr. Bennington had done very well in the hotel; but he was ambitious to
do business on a larger scale, and was revolving in his mind a plan to
make the Cliff House into a large establishment, which would attract
summer visitors in great numbers. He had bought the present hotel, and
paid for it from his profits; and he hoped soon to be able to rebuild it
on a larger scale.

His wife was faithful and devoted to him and the children. She had
always done the cooking for the Cliff House, which had given it an
excellent reputation. She was not only a good and true woman, but she
was an exceedingly useful one to a hotel-k