Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands;
and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning,
disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her
guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was
in the cow-sheds--in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been
forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her,
abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she
went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and
she began to wonder what had become of her.

The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and
his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was
indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had
always been the first people of their class in the place, always held
their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first
at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of
sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and
hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed,
Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether
unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of
being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart.
Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which
Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her
out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know,
Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the
comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was
obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated
in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her
very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who
are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they
are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no
dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more
or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree
of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the
rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but
ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and
the malicious condolences