to dinner every Sunday, sat at the
bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went
away."

"He didn't like pudding?"

"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good
old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel
has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him."

"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with
your being unkind to him now?"

"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on."

"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither
pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him,
so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his
good."

"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on
Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes--they were both tall young
women, and their eyes were on a level--"I wonder what the end of you
will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of
treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up
your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with
respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding--they won't understand it,
and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and
will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about
you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms
as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never
heard of the _Apostel Paulus_?"

Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for
these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for
turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next
time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the
nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's
sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding
three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time,
when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on
Trudi's face.

Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown
what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had
been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and
admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon
became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were s