disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman
should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of
that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children.
Peter has done it. He is a _Quatschkopf_."

"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled
by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there
would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of
money."

"Nonsense. Money is very good."

"But not somebody else's."

"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only
money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how
comes it that you are not married?"

Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said.

"_Ach_--she asks you that often?"

"Yes--no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married."

"And what knows she?"

"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point
of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and
laughed.

"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him,
so soft and young--for that she was twenty-four was hardly
credible--could not by any possibility be anything but lovable.

"She says that I am disagreeable to people--that I look cross--that I
don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected
to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to
marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it
isn't really independence."

"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great
decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the
lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is
her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow
circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never
marries has missed all things."

"I don't believe it," said Anna.

"It is nevertheless true."

"Look at Susie--is she so happy?"

"I said a _good_ husband; not a _Duselfritz_."

"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I
could be outside them, if only I were independent!"

"Independent--independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this
same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's
head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?"

"Oh--good men's shoulders," said Anna, shr