--it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up.
Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added
aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the
gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't
you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand."

"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others,
Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking
at once in their anxiety to make a good impression.

"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't
have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you
get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?"

Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they
were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an
obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all.
They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have
mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though
they had not been there.

Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in
order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty,
echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer
everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all
starving, and these people won't go."

"But how can I make them go?"

"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for
them when I wanted them."

"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant
that I believe he means to be my master."

The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said
anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something
about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that
brief moment were quiet.

"_Wir sind hungrig_," said Anna to the wife.

"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the
cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the
kitchen.

"_Und kalt_," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once
flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for
dinner. "_Bitte, bitte_," he said, ushering them in as though the place
belonged to him.

"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with
little goodwill.

"He told