her features.

Then the rushing wheels disappeared in the darkness.

Frau von Gropphusen rode quietly home.

The servant was waiting at the door. He took the machine from her,
asking if she would take tea.

"No," she answered. "I have had it. You can clear the things away."

She threw herself on the couch in her room just as she was, in her
bicycling costume. She drew up the rug and wrapped herself in it.

And Hannah Gropphusen lay thus till far into the night, staring with
wide-open eyes into the darkness of the room.

A few days later Marie Falkenhein came through the garden gate to Klaere
Guentz's house.

"Klaere," she said, "I am going into the town to inquire after Frau von
Stuckardt. Would you like me to call in at the chemist's and tell him
he is to send you the sugar-of-milk for the baby?"

Frau Klaere took stock of the young girl, and shook her finger at her
laughingly.

"Mariechen! Mariechen!" she said. "I never would have believed you
could become such an accomplished hypocrite, my child."

Marie turned crimson.

"Yes, yes," continued Klaere. "Because you have heard me call vanity a
vice, you were ashamed to show off your new dress and hat to me. But
you hadn't quite the heart to pass by your old friend's house. Isn't
that the way of it?"

The young girl nodded, her face scarlet.

Klaere stroked her cheek caressingly, and went on: "You silly little
goose! But really, you know, when one's as pretty as you are, a little
vanity is excusable. And now tell me, where in the world did you get
these things?"

"Oh, Klaere," replied the girl, "not here, of course. Frau von
Gropphusen went with me and helped me to choose them. I can tell you,
Klaere, she does understand such things."

The young woman stood in front of her friend and looked her over from
head to foot. It would have been impossible to find any costume which
lent itself more happily to Marie's dainty appearance than this of some
light-grey soft silken material, trimmed with white, and with a little
hat to match, the shape of which softly emphasised the delicate beauty
of the young face.

Klaere gave the girl a hearty kiss, and said: "You are as pretty as a
picture, little one. Quite lovely. Well, and what did the stern father
say to all this?"

Marie was quite flushed with pride.

"At first he said, 'By Jove!'" she answered. "Then I made him give me a
kiss; and next he got quite anxious and wanted to know whether I hadn't
been r