rhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna.

The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the
Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite
extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those
foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of
being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and
she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours.
Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he
would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing.

This being settled, Anna said _Gehen Sie_ to her coachman, who again
showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles
and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the
schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand
with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a
summer's day and no one looking.

Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later
on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood
had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But
Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to
answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head.

On the other side of the village the _chaussee_ came to an end, and two
deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their
junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran
down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this
sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them.

"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped
again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks.

"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping
off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet
done.

"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in
an undertone.

"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a
speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill
on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like _that_, so you
had better stop him."

"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of
speeches.

"_Gestatten gnaediges Fraeulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung
ausspreche_," began the glib inspector, bowing at eve