oe, she brought the pink bolster from
the Frau's bed and covered the baby's face with it, pressed with all her
might as he struggled, "like a duck with its head off, wriggling", she
thought.

She heaved a long sigh, then fell back on to the floor, and was walking
along a little white road with tall black trees on either side, a little
road that led to nowhere, and where nobody walked at all--nobody at all.

11. THE ADVANCED LADY.

"Do you think we might ask her to come with us," said Fraulein Elsa,
retying her pink sash ribbon before my mirror. "You know, although she
is so intellectual, I cannot help feeling convinced that she has some
secret sorrow. And Lisa told me this morning, as she was turning out my
room, that she remains hours and hours by herself, writing; in fact Lisa
says she is writing a book! I suppose that is why she never cares to
mingle with us, and has so little time for her husband and the child."

"Well, YOU ask her," said I. "I have never spoken to the lady."

Elsa blushed faintly. "I have only spoken to her once," she confessed.
"I took her a bunch of wild flowers, to her room, and she came to the
door in a white gown, with her hair loose. Never shall I forget that
moment. She just took the flowers, and I heard her--because the door
was not quite properly shut--I heard her, as I walked down the passage,
saying 'Purity, fragrance, the fragrance of purity and the purity of
fragrance!' It was wonderful!"

At that moment Frau Kellermann knocked at the door.

"Are you ready?" she said, coming into the room and nodding to us very
genially. "The gentlemen are waiting on the steps, and I have asked the
Advanced Lady to come with us."

"Na, how extraordinary!" cried Elsa. "But this moment the gnadige Frau
and I were debating whether--"

"Yes, I met her coming out of her room and she said she was charmed
with the idea. Like all of us, she has never been to Schlingen. She
is downstairs now, talking to Herr Erchardt. I think we shall have a
delightful afternoon."

"Is Fritzi waiting too?" asked Elsa.

"Of course he is, dear child--as impatient as a hungry man listening for
the dinner bell. Run along!"

Elsa ran, and Frau Kellermann smiled at me significantly. In the past
she and I had seldom spoken to each other, owing to the fact that her
"one remaining joy"--her charming little Karl--had never succeeded in
kindling into flame those sparks of maternity which are supposed to glow
in great