h a rigid look.

"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."

"You are very good."

"Oh, I am not good, only so happy--I have everything in the world that I
have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all
there is nothing more I can think of that I want."

"_Ach_," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or
cousins, who would come and stay with you?"

"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they
wouldn't like staying here with me at all."

"They would not like staying with you? How strange."

"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I
can be in my own house."

"And your friends--they too will not come?"

"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."

"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that
you should not be so lonely?"

"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with
a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived
with."

"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"

"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the
correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all
her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have
some of my nice things too."

"But not your own friends and relations?"

"They have everything they want."

There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She
was thinking that this was a queer little person--outside, that is.
Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but
her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take
her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and
lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people
would call these questions rude.

But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping
you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your
things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming
when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly,
vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full
of doubts than ever.

When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von
Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered.
Then she opened the door softly and looked in.

These were precious mom