nose in unmistakeable displeasure.

His face brightened again. "_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_," he exclaimed
cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than
the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the
leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he
himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he
inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous
that his new mistress should be pleased.

Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis
that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt
reassured.

"What does he say?" asked Susie.

"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been
rubbing the leather with."

"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that
she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him
and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and
showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be--to be
unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent
clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be
unboxed?

Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and
Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during
the rest of the drive.

"Go on--_avanti_!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she
was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been
troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her
lips every time she opened them to speak German.

The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the
straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend.
The high-road, or _chaussee_, was planted on either side with maples,
and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the
way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been
dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from
the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled
into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the
right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little
while, with the flat coast of Ruegen opposite; and then some rising
ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it
from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at