rs in
arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any
circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded
understandingly.

"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he
suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings
to the house and set him against all of them."

"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Graefin shook her head.
"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace
his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any
class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be
passive--apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word
and Mariette's for that."

The Graefin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors
approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and
raged--the Graefin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather
encouraged these exciting tempers--arguing that these three girls bade
fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that
the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and
honorable House of Niebuhr.

The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant
of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently
supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped
dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had
presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons
been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when
she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony
of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused
himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and
he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest.

The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to
her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls,
the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid.

The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The
countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives,
even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated
that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she
should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in
advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should