own dear "Kugelhuff"[8] a "comedy!!!"

[Footnote 8: A cake eaten everywhere in Hungary.]

Fanny in sooth required no coaxing. At first sight anyone could see that
she was the spoiled child of the family, to whom everything was allowed.
She tried everything, took a double portion of everything and only after
taking what she required did she ask "darf ich?"[9]--and I understood
immediately from the tone of her voice and the nodding of her head, that
she meant to ask "if she might."

[Footnote 9: i. e., darf ich, "may I?"]

Then instead of finishing her share she had the audacity to place her
leavings on my plate, an action which called forth rebuke enough from
Grossmamma. I did not understand what she said, but I strongly suspected
that she abused her for wishing to accustom the "new child" to eating a
great deal. Generally speaking, I had brought from home the suspicion
that, when two people were speaking German before me, they were surely
hatching some secret plot against me, the end of which would be, either
that I would not get something, or would not be taken somewhere, where
I wished to go.

I would not have tasted anything the little snub-nose gave me, if only
for the reason that it was she who had given it. How could she dare to
touch my plate with those dirty little hands of hers, that were just
like cats-paws?

Then she gave everything I would not accept to the little kitten;
however, the end of it all was, that she again turned to me, and asked
me to play with the kitten.

Incomprehensible audacity! To ask me, who was already a school-student,
to play with a tiny kitten.

"Shoo!" I said to the malicious creature; a remark which,
notwithstanding the fact that it seemed to belong to some
strange-tongued nationality, the animal understood, for it immediately
leaped down off the table and ran away. This caused the little snub-nose
to get angry with me, and she took her sensitive revenge upon me, by
going across to my grandmother, whom she tenderly caressed, kissing her
hand, and then nestled to her bosom, turning her back on me; once or
twice she looked back at me, and if at the moment my eye was on her,
sulkily flung back her head; as if that was any great misfortune to me.

Little imp! She actually occupied my place beside my grandmother--and
before my eyes too.

Well, and why did I gaze at her, if I was so very angry with her? I will
tell you truly; it was only that I might see to what extremes she