cover her
unbrushed hair with a cap, and so proceed to breakfast, when this
exacting aunt stops her: actually desires her to plait and comb her
hair at this hour of the morning, and to put on a tidy gown.
Gretchen's gown is extremely untidy, and on that account I will not
admit that the portrait is wholly lifelike. In fact, the author has
summed up the sins of all the _Backfisch_ tribe, and made a single
_Backfisch_ guilty of them. But caricature, if you know how to allow
for it, is instructive. Mr. Stiggins is a caricature, yet he stands
for failings that exist among us, though they are never displayed
quite so crudely. "Go and brush your nails," says the aunt to the
niece when the girl attempts to kiss her hand; and the _Backfisch_
uses a nail-brush for the first time in her life.

Then the two ladies sit down to breakfast. Gretchen fills the cups too
full, soaks her roll in her coffee, and drinks out of her saucer. Her
aunt informs her that "coffee pudding" is not polite, and can only be
allowed when they are by themselves; also that she must not drink out
of the saucer. "But we children always did it at home," says Gretchen.
"I can well believe it," says the aunt. "_Everything is permitted to
children._" The italics are mine.

An aunt who has such ideas about the education of the young is
naturally not surprised when at dinner-time she has to admonish her
niece not to wipe her mouth with her hand, not to speak with her
mouth full, to eat her soup quietly, to keep her elbows off the table,
not to put her fingers in her plate or her knife in her mouth, and not
to take her chicken into her hands on ceremonial occasions.

"My treasure," says the aunt, "as you know, we are going to dinner
with the Dunkers to-morrow. Be good enough not to take your chicken
into your hands. Here at home I don't object to it, but the really
correct way is to separate the meat from the bone with the knife and
fork."

The docile _Backfisch_ says _Jawohl, liebe Tante_, and feels that this
business of becoming civilised is full of pitfalls and surprises.
Never in her life has she eaten poultry without the assistance of her
fingers. When she gets to the dinner-party she is fortunate enough to
sit next to her bosom friend, who starts in horror and whispers "With
a knife, Gretchen," when Gretchen is just about to dip her fingers in
the salt. The _Backfisch_ is truly anxious to learn, but she feels
that the injunctions of society are hard, and