labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a
life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an
altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In
the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left
the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a
large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in
it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his
remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a
zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases.

"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspraesident,"
Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She
is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory
for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old
ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you
have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a
nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. _Ach_,
Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You
could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping
racehorses."

Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own,
looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one
of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently
enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an
expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye
could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took
up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be
able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I
believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi
as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and
put both letters in the post-bag.

The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected.
Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock,
when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a _Friseur_, an artist
in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his
pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated
the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was
devoted to him, with the devotion naturally f