had just told
him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of
angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was
clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders
and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a
man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor.

His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the
edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She
could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off
exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to
her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed
by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had
shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been
requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young
Fraeulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes;
disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked,
to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to
notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways.
And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise
her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not
been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course
dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his
wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a
person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These
things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of
Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food
for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over
slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences,
while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful
breath she drew.

"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the
greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a
Christian character."

"But not in my name," said Anna.

"No, no, we must be discreet--we must be very discreet. The
advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously,
inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be
an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the
desirabil