ady with a sensible face. Her
boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking
more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first
time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain
faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period,
to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by
other matters than her charms.

"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further
to tell you the truth."

This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head,
and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near.

"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are
inexperienced."

"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and
uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house
interviewing a companion. "Not so young--twenty-five."

"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?"

Anna did not know, so said nothing.

"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady,
scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there.
"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in
this case are peculiar."

"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine----" And
she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the
lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence,
and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been
reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live
on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of
charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work
for my bread."

She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh."

"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my
resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to
give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called
myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and
to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess
Ludwig, of that house."

She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was
confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she
had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get
up early and see that the twel