"Look at my great fingers beside yours."

"But they are beautifully kept," said the sister of the Baroness shyly.
The minx! Was love then a question of manicure?

"How I should adore to kiss you," murmured the student. "But you know I am
suffering from severe nasal catarrh, and I dare not risk giving it to you.

Sixteen times last night did I count myself sneezing. And three different
handkerchiefs."

I threw Morike into the lilac bush, and went back to the house. A great
automobile snorted at the front door. In the salon great commotion. The

Baroness was paying a surprise visit to her little daughter. Clad in a
yellow mackintosh she stood in the middle of the room questioning the

manager. And every guest the pension contained was grouped about her, even
the Frau Doktor, presumably examining a timetable, as near to the august

skirts as possible.
"But where is my maid?" asked the Baroness.

"There was no maid," replied the manager, "save for your gracious sister
and daughter."

"Sister!" she cried sharply. "Fool, I have no sister. My child travelled
with the daughter of my dressmaker."

Tableau grandissimo!
4. FRAU FISCHER.

Frau Fischer was the fortunate possessor of a candle factory somewhere on
the banks of the Eger, and once a year she ceased from her labours to make

a "cure" in Dorschausen, arriving with a dress-basket neatly covered in a
black tarpaulin and a hand-bag. The latter contained amongst her

handkerchiefs, eau de Cologne, toothpicks, and a certain woollen muffler
very comforting to the "magen," samples of her skill in candle-making, to

be offered up as tokens of thanksgiving when her holiday time was over.
Four of the clock one July afternoon she appeared at the Pension Muller. I

was sitting in the arbour and watched her bustling up the path followed by
the red-bearded porter with her dress-basket in his arms and a sunflower

between his teeth. The widow and her five innocent daughters stood
tastefully grouped upon the steps in appropriate attitudes of welcome; and

the greetings were so long and loud that I felt a sympathetic glow.
"What a journey!" cried the Frau Fischer. "And nothing to eat in the

train--nothing solid. I assure you the sides of my stomach are flapping
together. But I must not spoil my appetite for dinner--just a cup of

coffee in my room. Bertha," turning to the youngest of the five, "how
changed! What a bust! Frau Hartmann, I congratulate you."

Once again the Widow seized Frau Fischer's hands. "Kathi, too, a splendid
woman; but a little pale. Perhaps the young man from Nurnberg is here

again this year. How you keep them all I don't know. Each year I come
expecting to find you with an empty nest. It's surprising."

Frau Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: "We are such a happy
family since my dear man died."

"But these marriages--one must have courage; and after all, give them time,
they all make the happy family bigger--thank God for that...Are there many

people here just now?"
"Every room engaged."

Followed a detailed description in the hall, murmured on the stairs,
continued in six parts as they entered the large room (windows opening upon

the garden) which Frau Fischer occupied each successive year. I was
reading the "Miracles of Lourdes," which a Catholic priest--fixing a gloomy

eye upon my soul--had begged me to digest; but its wonders were completely
routed by Frau Fischer's arrival. Not even the white roses upon the feet

of the Virgin could flourish in that atmosphere.
"...It was a simple shepherd-child who pastured her flocks upon the

barren fields..."
Voices from the room above: "The washstand has, of course, been scrubbed

over with soda."
"...Poverty-stricken, her limbs with tattered rags half covered..."

"Every stick of the furniture has been sunning in the garden for three
days. And the carpet we made ourselves out of old clothes. There is a

piece of that beautiful flannelpetticoat you left us last summer."
"...Deaf and dumb was the child; in fact, the population considered her

half idiot..."
"Yes, that is a new picture of the Kaiser. We have moved the thorn-crowned

one of Jesus Christ out into the passage. It was not cheerful to sleep
with. Dear Frau Fischer, won't you take your coffee out in the garden?"

"That is a very nice idea. But first I must remove my corsets and my
boots. Ah, what a relief to wear sandals again. I am needing the 'cure'

very badly this year. My nerves! I am a mass of them. During the entire
journey I sat with my handkerchief over my head, even while the guard

collected the tickets. Exhausted!"
She came into the arbour wearing a black and white spotted dressing-gown,

and a calico cap peaked with patent leather, followed by Kathi, carrying
the little blue jugs of malt coffee. We were formally introduced. Frau

Fischer sat down, produced a perfectly clean pocket handkerchief and
polished her cup and saucer, then lifted the lid of the coffee-pot and

peered in at the contents mournfully.
"Malt coffee," she said. "Ah, for the first few days I wonder how I can

put up with it. Naturally, absent from home one must expect much
discomfort and strange food. But as I used to say to my dear husband:

with a clean sheet and a good cup of coffee I can find my happiness
anywhere. But now, with nerves like mine, no sacrifice is too terrible for

me to make. What complaint are you suffering from? You look exceedingly
healthy!"

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
"Ah, that is so strange about you English. You do not seem to enjoy

discussing the functions of the body. As well speak of a railway train and
refuse to mention the engine. How can we hope to understand anybody,

knowing nothing of their stomachs? In my husband's most severe illness--
the poultices--"

She dipped a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve.
"Yet a young friend of mine who travelled to England for the funeral of his

brother told me that women wore bodices in public restaurants no waiter
could help looking into as he handed the soup."

"But only German waiters," I said. "English ones look over the top of your
head."

"There," she cried, "now you see your dependence on Germany. Not even an
efficient waiter can you have by yourselves."

"But I prefer them to look over your head."
"And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."

I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees
growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or the

other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to England
in the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but decided it

was not worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious, and who could
be uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations which Frau Fischer

was enduring until six-thirty? As a gift from heaven for my forbearance,
down the path towards us came the Herr Rat, angelically clad in a white

silk suit. He and Frau Fischer were old friends. She drew the folds of
her dressing-gown together, and made room for him on the little green

bench.
"How cool you are looking," she said; "and if I may make the remark--what a

beautiful suit!"
"Surely I wore it last summer when you were here? I brought the silk from

China--smuggled it through the Russian customs by swathing it round my
body. And such a quantity: two dress lengths for my sister-in-law, three

suits for myself, a cloak for the housekeeper of my flat in Munich. How I
perspired! Every inch of it had to be washed afterwards."

"Surely you have had more adventures than any man in Germany. When I think
of the time that you spent in Turkey with a drunken guide who was bitten by

a mad dog and fell over a precipice into a field of attar of roses, I
lament that you have not written a book."

"Time--time. I am getting a few notes together. And now that you are here
we shall renew our quiet little talks after supper. Yes? It is necessary

and pleasant for a man to find relaxation in the company of women
occasionally."

"Indeed I realise that. Even here your life is too strenuous--you are so