here. To Anna this seemed
quite impossible. It was far more likely that the cruel English Post
Office had kept back the letter because it came from Germany.

Now it was New Year's Day, and after having heard her mistress go out,
Anna, sore at heart, reminded herself that were she now in service in
Germany she would have already received this morning a really handsome
money gift, more a right than a perquisite, from her mistress. She did
not remind herself that this yearly benefaction is always demanded back
by a German employer of his servant, if that servant is discharged,
owing to her own fault, within a year.

Yes, England was indeed an ill-organized country! How often had she
longed in the last eighteen years to possess the privilege of a
wish-ticket--that delightful _Wunschzettel_ which enables so many happy
people in the Fatherland to make it quite plain what it is they really
want to have given them for a birthday or a Christmas present. Strange
to say--but Anna did not stop to think of that now--this wonderful bit
of organisation does not always work out quite well. Evil has been known
to come from a wish-ticket, for a modest person is apt to ask too
little, and then is bitterly disappointed at not getting more than he
asks for, while the grasping ask too much, and are angered at getting
less!

It would be doing Anna a great injustice to suppose that her sad
thoughts were all of herself on this mournful New Year's Day of 1915.
Her sentimental heart was pierced with pain every time she looked into
the face of her beloved nursling. Not that she often had an opportunity
of looking into Rose's face, for Mrs. Jervis Blake (never would Anna get
used to that name!) only came home to sleep. She almost always stayed
and had supper with the Robeys, then she would rush home for the night,
and after an early breakfast--during which, to Anna's thinking, she did
not eat nearly enough--be off again to spend with her bridegroom
whatever time she was not devoting to war work under Miss Forsyth.

Anna had been curious to know how soon Mr. Blake would be able to walk,
but in answer to a very simple, affectionate question, the bride, who
had just then been looking so happy--as radiant, indeed, as a German
bride looks within a month of her marriage day--had burst into tears,
and said hurriedly, "Oh, it won't be very long now, dear Anna, but I'd
rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

Yet another thing added to Anna's dee