is here under false pretences," said the
baroness.

"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the
baroness, "is a very dreadful thing."

"Certainly," agreed the baroness.

Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go
on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and
her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order
to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with
a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that
you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so
often--I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red
eyes--that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to
begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in
her, and not minding the rest."

"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the
question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her."

"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness.

"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and
miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope,
shall?"

They thought this profane.

"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently.
Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our
duty to ask you if you know what her father was."

"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of
Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's reply to her inquiries.

"Exactly. But of what letters?"

"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness.

"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled.

"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von
Treumann.

"In a bag?"

"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you
untruths."

There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the
toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on
the footstool, "to tell untruths."

"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness.

"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann.

"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up.

"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be
shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of
family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will
not ask us to do so, but will send her away."

"No,"