ill miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch.

"Well, good-bye then, _alter Junge_. Work hard, do your duty, and don't
let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never
do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no
good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip
to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs,
and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She
turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her
oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the
steps of his solitary house.

CHAPTER XII

So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of
Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked
her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the
Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind,
with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss
Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to
quotations from the _Erl-Koenig_ and the _Lied von der Glocke_, it could
not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The
servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was
extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid--for she
felt unequal to coping with German men-servants--wore her arms naked all
day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for
thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee--the local
tea was undrinkable--she still had bare arms; and, examining her more
closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was
sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began
to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve.

The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of
fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were
fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means
willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room
and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read
the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many
sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she
said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to
those already heaped