all the affairs and animosities of nations.

I had other things to think of. I was employed in the delicate operation
of extracting amber nectar by a tedious dripping process, and
simultaneously engaging with a rapid-fire German at short range. I
understood very little of what she said, and what I did gather was not
complimentary. I fired a volley or two at last myself, and then
retreated in good order bearing the coffee-pot.

The coffee was a success, but it was obtained at too great a risk. That
night we wrote to Rosa and to her mother. We got no reply, and, after
days of anxious waiting, the Little Woman went out to discuss the
situation in person. But the family had moved, and there had been a very
heavy snow. The Little Woman waded about nearly all day in pursuit of
the new address. She learned it at last, but it was too late then to go
any farther, so she came home and wrote again, only to get no reply.
Then I tried my hand in the matter as follows:--

LINES TO ROSA IN ABSENCE.

Lady Rosa Vere de Smith,
Leave your kin and leave your kith;
Life without you is a mockery;
Come once more and rend our crockery.

Lady Rosa Vere de Smith,
Life for us has lost its pith;
You taught us how to prize you thus,
And now you will not bide with us.

Lady Rosa Vere de Smith,
Have we no voice to reach you with?
Come once more and wreck our larder;
We will welcome you with ardor.

I could have written more of this, perhaps, and I still believe it would
have proved effective, but when I read aloud as far as written, the
Little Woman announced that she would rather do without Rosa forever
than to let a thing like that go through the mails. So it was
suppressed, and Rosa was lost to us, I fear, for all time.

But Providence had not entirely forgotten us, though its ways as usual
were inscrutable. Wilhelmine, it seems, locked herself nightly in her
room, and the locks being noiseless in the Monte Cristo apartments she
could not realize when the key turned that she was really safely barred
in. Hence it seems she continued to twist at the key which, being of a
slender pattern, was one night wrenched apart and Wilhelmine, alas! was
only too surely fortified in her stronghold. When she realized this she,
of course, became wildly vociferous.

I heard the outburst and hastening back found her declaring that she was
lost without a doubt. That the house would certainly catch fire before
she was released an