," said Hannah frowning, "the way she
was in Berlin. I wish she would stay that way!"

Miss Lyndesay looked at Hannah searchingly.

"Frieda," she called, "will you gather flowers for the luncheon table,
please? Hannah is going to pick raspberries with me. I have a most
beautiful old glass bowl to put them in."

Frieda undertook the task assigned her joyfully, and Hannah followed
Miss Lyndesay to the kitchen, where Aunt Abigail's old servant,
inherited with the house, supplied them with pails for the
berry-picking. The bushes were at the other end of the garden, where
they could speak without being overheard.

Miss Lyndesay said nothing at first, but she had not long to wait.
Hannah had poured out her puzzles and worries in letters to this friend
often, since the evening at Three Gables, long ago, when she had poured
them out in words and tears, and found comfort.

It was a torrent of words this time, but Miss Lyndesay, listening,
distinguished between essentials and non-essentials by a divine gift
which had always been hers.

"She doesn't seem the same Frieda," declared Hannah, at last. "I don't
feel acquainted with her. Mamma says it is just because everything is
new and strange to her. She hasn't criticised things since she and Karl
went off together for a little trip the other day, but she looks bored
or unhappy and I don't know what to do. I was a stranger when we were
together before, but I'm sure I didn't act so, and I don't see why she
should now. So there!"

"Did you go to Germany alone?" Miss Lyndesay put the question casually,
and Hannah looked up, surprised.

"Why, no. Dad and Mamma were there all the time, of course. I couldn't
have lived without them--O! I see what you mean," and the berries
dropped slowly into the half-full pail while Hannah meditated.

Clara Lyndesay, observing her bent face, felt satisfied. It was not the
first time she had seen Hannah Eldred come out of a quandary with very
little help.

"She doesn't do things by halves, either," she thought. "Frieda won't
have such a lonely time from now on." Aloud she said:

"I wondered, when I heard you speak to Frieda in that careful
explanatory way, as you might to a child who had been left in your care
rather against your will, if you seemed just natural to Frieda! Frau
Lange realized that there was some risk in sending Frieda over here. She
told me that she knew young girls changed rapidly in tastes and ideals,
and it might be that