y old house in a
respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the
heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee."

Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and
called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely
four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German
officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty
minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a
week.

At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but
when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room
(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of
their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich
society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her
sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But
they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady
was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband
she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had
taken Aimee, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging,
nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain
permission to move her piano--a present from relatives who occasionally
came to the rescue--a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and
have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that
a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her
daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimee had the national
genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that
one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally
succumbed; relieving her mind daily.

After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several
notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Doering.
She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for
her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always
sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic
smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled
by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German
newspaper, but subscribed for _Le Figaro_), and as she knew Gisela to
be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and
Heloise at last experienced somethi