mself
about you!" and shoving back her plate, she snatched up the empty
water-pails, which it was her duty to fill afresh at the well, and went
out.

"Fie," said John, an old servant, who, having grown gray in the service
of his lordship's father, was now eating the bread of charity in the
house of Baron Eichenthal. "It is wrong to spoil the wench's food and
drink with bitter words."

"Pshaw!" retorted the gardener, "it will not hurt her. Since that
lean-bodied toady, Frederick, has been running after her, she's as
proud as though she had angled a nobleman!"

"Pride comes before a fall!" said Lizzie, the buxom little cook, with a
tender glance at the phlegmatic head farm-hand. "Do you know that she
laces?"

"Why shouldn't she be proud," interjected the coachman, "isn't she the
schoolmaster's daughter!"

Frederika, the chambermaid, came into the kitchen with a heated face.
"Isn't Anna here?" she asked, drying her forehead with her silk
handkerchief. "The master has just gone to bed, he joked a good
deal"--here she coughed, as the others cast significant glances at one
another and laughed--"and I am to tell her that she is to begin combing
the flax right away, and"--this she added on her own authority--"she
must not stop work until ten o'clock."

"I'll give her the message, Rika!" answered Lizzie. Frederika tripped
out again.

"Doesn't she lace too?" asked the head farm-hand.

"Chut! Chut!" whispered John, and jingled his fork against his plate in
embarrassment. Anna entered the kitchen with her load of water.

"Anna," began Lizzie officiously, "I am to tell you--"

"I know all about it already," answered Anna drily, in a steady voice.
"I met the messenger. Where is the key to the flax-room hanging?"

"Over there on the nail!" replied the cook, and pointed with her finger
to the place.

Anna, composed, because inwardly crushed, took the key, and while the
others went off to their trunks in order to complete their toilet before
a three groschen mirror, she went hastily into the flax-room, the
windows of which looked out upon the castle courtyard and the high-road.
She sat down, her face turned toward the windows so that she could see
all the merry-makers on their way from the village to the kermess and
hear their gay talk. She began to work with gloomy industry. Although at
times she unconsciously sank into a fit of brooding, she would
immediately start up again terrified, as though bitten by a snake or
ta