lly, she asked the
princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she
recommended cookery books.

"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised.

"_Es ist egal_--it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other
reading affords me the same pleasure."

"But only when you want something new cooked."

"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess.

Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case
one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one
bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the
last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was
greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that
period she was greatly attached.

The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were
in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened
by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her
room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in
case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful
maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats
on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do,
and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know
who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a _Buergerliche_?

About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest
with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding
thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at
Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours;
there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had
been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the
little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed
over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill,
and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's
earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly
be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the
children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at
dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make
them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's
charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on
his way home,