Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech
set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought
back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the
first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the
flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she
had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three
new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence
about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling
after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna
met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were
progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal."
And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to
shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn
into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his
eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that
burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did
it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's
fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.

"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first
intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too,
every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry
them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."

"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful
display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table
when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she
was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to
understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you
liked."

"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek
against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was
nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been
a man of flowers.

She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a
jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later,
when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping
out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed
to _Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fraeulein Anna Estcourt_; and inside was a sheet
of notepaper with a large red h