e comfort and convenience of future but certainly not of present
visitors.

As trade was evidently flourishing, we had not the slightest hesitation
in ringing for Maria, the _kellnerin_, and consulting with her about the
mode of our procuring country lodgings as soon as possible. Maria was a
good-natured girl and willing to serve us, but our ideas could not be so
easily carried out as we had anticipated. One of us had the folly to
suggest vacant rooms being to let in the castle.

"Gracious!" replied Maria, casting her eyes up to the sky. "In the
castle! Why, that's crown property, and filled with the military.
Really, I don't know how I can help you, since the gentlemen officers
have engaged for themselves every apartment inside or outside the town."

We spoke of the many neighboring villages, which were filled with grand
old houses.

Maria declared they were better outside than inside, and that the Bauers
who dwelt in them could scarcely find bedding for their cattle, much
less for Christian gentlefolks. "There is the Herr Apotheker's house at
Unterhofen, but he will not let that. There is the Hof at Adelsheim:
it's out of the question. There is also Frau Sieger's in the same
village, but that is let to the Herr Major for the season. Look you! you
had better go to Frau Sieger. Stay, I will send Lina with you."

Lina proved to be one of the blossoms of the noble family tree. She led
my mother and me to Frau Sieger, but what came of our afternoon's
expedition deserves to be told in a fresh chapter.

CHAPTER II.

Now, this house-hunting was a piece of business to be got through as
soon as possible. Nevertheless, three hours elapsed before we returned
to the hotel. We found the father and Margaret leaning their heads out
of a corridor window, and when we asked them what they were about, she
replied, "We have been wishing that the grand old mansion in yonder
village were only a _pension_, where we could obtain rooms. But have you
met with any success?"

"A _pension_! That sounds like Meran or Switzerland, instead of this
primitive Pusterthal. Only let us have tea, and we will tell you what we
have done."

"Very good! We will be patient; but you do not look dissatisfied with
your afternoon," said my father.

Nor in truth were we. Sipping our mild tea, we related our adventures.
The little girl Lina had taken us into the town, which consisted of one
narrow street in the shape of a half-moon, where houses of all