"Why does she wear that black thing over her face?" inquired the
child. "Is she a witch?"

"Silence, silence, little worthless one," cried the mother,
delightedly stroking his face with half a _Broedchen_. "You see he is
clever, Fraeulein. He resembles his dear father as one egg does
another."

"Does he?" said Priscilla, immediately conceiving a prejudice against
the father.

"Why don't she take that black thing off?" said the child.

"Hush, hush, small impudence. The Fraeulein will take it off in a
minute. The Fraeulein has only just got in."

"Mutti, is she a witch? Mutti, Mutti, is she a witch, Mutti?"

The child, his eyes fixed anxiously on Priscilla's swathed head, began
to whimper.

"That child should be in bed," said Priscilla, with a severity born
of her anxiety lest, to calm him, humanity should force her to put up
her veil. "Persons who are as intelligent as that should never be in
trains at night. Their brains cannot bear it. Would he not be happier
if he lay down and went to sleep?"

"Yes, yes; that is what I have been telling him ever since we left
Kunitz"--Priscilla shivered--"but he will not go. Dost thou hear what
the Fraeulein says, Hans-Joachim?"

"Why don't she take that black thing off?" whimpered the child.

But how could the poor Princess, however anxious to be kind, take off
her veil and show her well-known face to this probable inhabitant of
Kunitz?

"Do take it off, Fraeulein," begged the mother, seeing she made no
preparations to do so. "When he gets ideas into his head there is
never peace till he has what he wants. He does remind me so much of
his father."

"Did you ever," said Priscilla, temporizing, "try him with a
little--just a little slap? Only a little one," she added hastily, for
the mother looked at her oddly, "only as a sort of counter-irritant.
And it needn't be really hard, you know--"

"_Ach_, she's a witch--Mutti, she's a witch!" shrieked the child,
flinging his face, butter and all, at these portentous words, into his
mother's lap.

"There, there, poor tiny one," soothed the mother, with an indignant
side-glance at Priscilla. "Poor tiny man, no one shall slap thee. The
Fraeulein does not allude to thee, little son. The Fraeulein is thinking
of bad children such as the sons of Schultz and thy cousin Meyer.
Fraeulein, if you do not remove your veil I fear he will have
convulsions."

"Oh," said the unhappy Priscilla, getting as far into her corner as
she coul