ce. And it was a superior
satisfaction to realize that this had not happened elsewhere in
Loschwitz.

There were left behind no lingering animosities, no painful
grievings. Feelings were too stout, sensibilities too tough, to
admit of acknowledging rancors or sickly complaints. The daughter's
marriageable future was apparently faced again with courageous
determination. As she could not be a luxurious American queen, she
must be a German housewife who ranked, to say the least, high
_enough_ in the eyes of Gott. But what German's wife? Oddly enough
Frau Bucher, despite all her bluntness, never let a hint out of the
bag of her franknesses before Kirtley.

After Jim Deming's second riotous invasion of Villa Elsa, when there
had been confirmed the abject and tumultuous surrender of the two
ladies, mind, body and soul, to mere money, prostrate at the feet of
an American "pig," Gard experienced a numbness of heart. True, the
daughter was tied to the apron strings of her mother. But then Jim
could only fling his pocketbook in her face. He had done it and she,
sheep-like, had obviously accepted the situation without a question,
a murmur.

How could he, as an American, gage such a blank lack of character,
individuality? How different was this trait from that which was
exhibited by the energetic prosecution of her talents where her
personality, shining forth so steadily, held his admiration almost
undimmed! This was a baffling interrogation that furnished another
evidence to Kirtley of a gaping chasm separating the Teutons from
other peoples. The highest ideal of German character is expressed by
works. The highest ideal of "Christian" character is expressed by
self.

Spring was now at hand. The sunlit air invited to the out-door
life. The windows and doors of Villa Elsa, which was stale and
stuffy from the closed-up winter, stood open and the inmates
came out of their hibernation, shook themselves and welcomed
the warmth and lack-luster brightness. The lindens and plane
trees and shrubberies began to hug the place under their cosy
leafage. Herr Bucher's rose garden was prepared to grow merry
with colors. The companionable garden corner for afternoon tea
and beer became a nook of liveliness. The oncoming summer sent
forth generally its exulting thrills.

This fine surging-in of sunny, revivifying Nature took at first such
a strong and glad hold on Gard that his private emotions, which Elsa
had so promptly sharpened and who