ove her a little, only a little, for herself alone. She had
grown so distrustful that she ascribed all kindness from strangers to
her wealth and the position which her family held in society. She was
quite conscious that she was repellent and unamiable, designedly so--no
one should know how poor she really felt. It was not necessary for them
to know that she wrung her hands and asked, "What shall I do? What do I
live for?" She had inherited from her father a delight in work, a need
for being of use--every responsible person feels a desire to be happy
and to make others happy--but she felt her life so great a burden, it
was so shallow, so distasteful, so full of petty interests.

She quickly dried her tears and turned; the door had opened and an old
servant entered.

"You are forgetting your tea again, Miss Gertrude," she began,
reproachfully. "It is all ready in the dining-room. I have brought in
the tea so it will cool a little, but you must come now."

The young girl thanked her pleasantly and followed her. She returned in
a very short time, nothing tasted good when she was so alone. She
lighted the lamp and took a book and read. It had grown still gradually
outside in the street, quarter after quarter struck from St. Benedict's
tower, until it was eleven o'clock. A carriage drove up--her mother was
coming home.

Gertrude closed her book, it was bedtime. The hall-door closed, steps
went past Gertrude's door--but no, some one was coming in.

Mrs. Baumhagen still wore her black Spanish lace mantilla over her
head. She only wished to ask her daughter what all this was about the
christening this afternoon. The pastor's wife had told her a story of a
curious kind of godfather; the pastor had come home full of it.

"Jenny did not come," explained the young girl, "and a strange
gentleman offered to stand."

"But how horribly pushing," cried the excited little woman. "You should
have drawn back, child--who knows what sort of a person he may be."

"I don't know him, mamma. But whoever he may be, he was so very
good; he never supposed, I am sure, that his kindness could be
misunderstood."

"There," cried Mrs. Baumhagen, "you see it is always so with you--you
are so easily imposed upon by that sort of thing, Gertrude,--really I
get very anxious about you. Did you know that Baron von Lowenberg--I
remember the name now--is a distant connection of the ducal house of
A.? Mrs. von S---- knows the whole family, they are char