should you want to marry me to every girl
within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt.
You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might
have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve
old ladies."

"Twelve----?"

"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies.
She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and
wants to share her own with persons who have neither."

"My dear Axel--is she mad?"

"She did not give me that impression."

"And you say she is young?"

"Yes."

"And really pretty?"

"Yes."

"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!"

"Of course she could."

"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly.

"It will be kind of you," said Lohm.

"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let
us be frank, and call things by their right names."

Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared.
She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent
style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would
see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But
Anna saw nothing but the crocus.

The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so
sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before
going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the
drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had
time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling
her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she
thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an
immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi,
watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy
in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar,
never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in
this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected
garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would
rapidly give way before the insidiousness of _Schweinebraten_, but her
hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its
proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting
a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by
the name _Frisur_.