o dreadful that
Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall
had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity,
and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the
simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she
insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and
drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those
rooms.

"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi.

"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is
purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness
that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are
happy."

Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was
streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful;
she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart
that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts.

At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly
tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the
permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her
complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the
advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These
letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found
them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall
when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with
them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to
stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should
go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he
felt that he contained. He deplored what he called _das impulsive
Temperament_ of the Graefin. Always had she been so, since the days she
climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when,
with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the
subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the
climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had
burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else
could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she
should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees,
and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske
ha