or
ever. Miriam once heard even Judy grumbling to herself in a mumbling
undertone as she carried the lower landing's collective "wasche"
upstairs to the back attic to await the quarterly waschfrau.

The German side of the landing was uncritical. On free mornings the
Germans had one preoccupation. It was generally betrayed by Emma in a
loud excited whisper, aimed across the landing: "Gehen wir zu Kreipe?
Do we go to Kreipe's?" "Kreipe, Kreipe," Minna and Clara would chorus
devoutly from their respective rooms. Gertrude on these occasions always
had an air of knowledge and would sometimes prophesy. To what extent
Fraulein did confide in the girl and how much was due to her experience
of the elder woman's habit of mind Miriam could never determine. But her
prophecies were always fulfilled.

Fraulein, who generally went to the basement kitchen from the
breakfast-table, would be heard on the landing towards the end of the
busy half-hour, rallying and criticising the housemaids in her gentle
caustic voice. She never came to the top floor. Miriam and Mademoiselle,
who agreed in accomplishing their duties with great despatch and
spending any spare time sitting in their jackets on their respective
beds reading or talking, would listen for her departure. There was
always a moment when they knew that the excitement was over and the
landing stricken into certainty. Then Mademoiselle would flit to the
top of the stairs and demand, leaning over the balustrade, "Eh bien! Eh
bien!" and someone would retail directions.

Sometimes Anna would appear in her short, chequered cotton dress,
shawled and with her market basket on her arm, and would summon Gertrude
alone or with Solomon Martin to Fraulein's room opposite the saal on
the ground floor. The appearance of Anna was the signal for bounding
anticipations. It nearly always meant a holiday and an expedition.

8

During the cold weeks after Miriam's arrival there were no expeditions;
and very commonly uncertainty was prolonged by a provisional
distribution of the ten girls between the kitchen and the five pianos.
In this case neither she nor Mademoiselle received any instructions.
Mademoiselle would go to the saal with needlework, generally the lighter
household mending. The saal piano at practising time was allotted to the
pupil to whom the next music lesson was due, and Mademoiselle spent the
greater part of her time installed, either awaiting the possible arrival
of Herr Bo