r! papa, if you had not said that about 'thank you, to-morrow,' for
the soup, then no one would ever have found it out. Now I shall have no
more fun with it."

But Dora had a comforting word for him, even now, and whispered softly,
"Yes, Hunne dear, you shall have some more fun with it, for I will bring
over my album this afternoon, and I will guide your hand while you write
the charade in it, and then I will take it to Karlsruhe, and show it to
all the people I know there, and they will all try to guess it."

So Hunne was comforted, and was able to finish his dinner happily. But
under the apple-tree where they were assembled for the last time, the
family were in very low spirits. For the next day Dora must stay with her
aunt to help her, and could not join them until the evening, in time for
the good-bye feast. Paula sat with her eyes full of tears, and did not
speak one word. Lili had already given signs of her state of mind, by all
sorts of restless movements, and at last she exclaimed,

"Mamma, I wish I never need touch the piano again; it will be terribly
tiresome without Dora, and Miss Hanenwinkel will find fault again and say
I am 'not progressing,' and I don't want to 'progress' when Dora is not
here!"

"Oh dear!" sighed Jule, "what terrible days are before us, with danger to
life and limb, when the twins begin again to find their time hang heavy
on their hands. It is a very stupid arrangement anyway," he went on quite
excitedly; "it would be far better for Dora to pass the winter with us.
Her aunt and uncle could go on in their quiet way in Karlsruhe all the
same without her."

The mother sympathized entirely in the children's regret at the separation
and said she hoped to persuade Mr. Ehrenreich to bring his wife and Dora
back for another summer.

Hunne was the only one more interested in the present than in the future,
and he kept pulling Dora's dress and saying,

"Go get your book, Dora! get the book!"

So Dora went to get her album, and brought it over for each one of her
friends, in the good old fashion, to write a verse or a motto in it, by
way of remembrance. It was no new, elegant, gilded affair. It was an old
book, faded and worn, and much of the writing in it was pale with age.
Here and there had been pasted on, tiny bunches of flowers and leaves all
of which had lost their color, and many of which had fallen off. The album
had belonged to Dora's mother, and the verses were all written in
unf