ynn looked moodily past her and out of the window. The Fraeulein changed
her tactics. "You have not seen mine new clothes-brush," she suggested.

"No," returned Lynn, unthinkingly, "I haven't."

"Then I will get him."

She came back, presently, and put it into Lynn's hand. It was made of
three strands of heavy rope, braided, looped to form a handle, tied with
a blue ribbon, and ravelled at the ends. "See," she said, "is it not
most beautiful?"

"Yes," agreed Lynn, absently.

"Miss Iris have told me how to make him."

Lynn came to himself with a start. "And this," she went on, pointing to
the gilded potato-masher that hung under the swinging lamp, "and
this,--but no, it is you who have made this for me. Miss Iris showed you
how." She pointed to the butterfly made so long ago, but still in its
pristine glory.

He said nothing, but by his face Fraeulein Fredrika saw that she had made
a mistake--that she had somehow been clumsy. After all, it was very
difficult, this conversing with gentlemen. Franz was easy to get along
with, but the others? She shook her head in despair, and immediately
relinquished the thought of entertaining Lynn.

She could not tell him that she had changed her mind, that she no longer
wanted him to sit with her, and that he could go down in the shop to
wait for Herr Kaufmann. Painfully, in the silence, she considered
several expedients, and at last her face brightened.

"Now that you are here," she said, "to guard mine house, it will be of a
possibility for me to go out for some vegetables for mine brudder's
dinner. He will have been very hungry from his long ride, and you see it
is not going to rain. You will excuse me for a short time, yes?"

"Gladly," answered Lynn, with sincerity.

"Then I need not fear to go. It will be most kind."

She had been gone but a few minutes when the storm broke. Lynn saw the
wild rain sweep across the valley with a sense of peaceful security
which was quite new to him. For some time, now, he would be
alone--alone, and yet sheltered from the storm.

Very often, after a deep experience, one looks upon the inanimate things
which were present at the beginning of it with wondering curiosity. The
crazy jug, the purple tidy embroidered with pink roses, and the gilded
potato-masher which swung back and forth when the wind shook the house,
were strangely linked with Destiny.

Here he had thoughtlessly touched the Cremona, and, for the time being,
made an enemy