d I
were to occupy the one bedroom, which luckily contained two small beds
and a sort of settee, such as one sees in old farmhouses all over the
world.

So it was decided; and, after all, for one night, what did it matter?
For one night? that was for me the question! The supper was really not
bad; but the look, and still worse the smell, of the room where it was
served, joined no doubt to our excessive fatigue, made it impossible for
me to eat anything. My friends were sorry, and I felt ashamed of myself
for being so easily knocked up or knocked down. How thoroughly I entered
into Frau von Walden's honestly-expressed dislike to "roughing it"! Yet
it was not only the uncivilised look of the place, nor the coarse food,
nor the want of comfort that made me feel that one night of Silberbach
would indeed be enough for me. A sort of depression, of fear almost,
came over me when I pictured the two children and myself alone in that
strange, out-of-the-world place, where it really seemed to me we might
all three be made an end of without any one being the wiser of it! There
was a general look of squalor and stolid depression about the people
too: the landlord was a black-browed, surlily silent sort of man, his
wife and the one maid-servant looked frightened and anxious, and the
only voices to be heard were those of half-tipsy peasants drinking and
quarrelling at the bar.

To say the least, it was not enlivening. Yet my pride was aroused. I
did not like to own myself already beaten. After supper I sat apart,
reflecting rather gloomily as to what I could or should do, while the
young men and the children amused themselves with the one piece of
luxury with which the poorest inn in Thuringia is sure to be provided.
For, anomalous as it may seem, there was a piano, and by no means an
altogether decrepit one, in the sandy-floored parlour!

Herr von Walden was smoking his pipe outside, the hay being by this time
housed somewhere or other. His wife, who had been speaking to him, came
in and sat down beside me.

"My dear," she said, "you must not be vexed with me for renewing the
subject, but I cannot help it; I feel a responsibility. You must not,
you really _must not_, think of staying here alone with those two
children. It is not fit for you."

Oh, how I blessed her for breaking the ice! I could hardly help hugging
her as I replied--diplomatically--

"You really think so?"

"Certainly I do; and so, though perhaps he won't say