na's
face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you
paint?"

"I wish I could."

"Ah, then you sing--or play?"

"I can do neither."

"_So?_ But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of
pastimes?"

"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy
till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy
being alive."

Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "_Ach so._"

There was another silence.

"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively.
She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that _Ach so_.

"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are
very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not
go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and
young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than
old ones."

At this speech Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's four cups became plainly written on
her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very
first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty
cup--too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on
to the floor and was broken. "_Ach, Herr Je!_" she cried in her
distress.

The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on
the lips of gentle-women.

"Oh, it does not matter--really it does not," Anna hastened to assure
her. "Don't pick it up--Letty will. The table is too small really. There
is no room on it for anything."

"_Ja, eben_," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, greatly discomfited.

"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning
to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von
Treumann.

"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little
smile expressive of patient endurance.

"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fraeulein
Kuhraeuber. "No, no--let Letty pick up the pieces----" for the Fraeulein,
in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining
cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak.

Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and
encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said
over her shoulder to the others.

And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich
actually found themselves going thr