idn't come and drive them into their roosts as usual, seeing that
the twilight was coming on fast. Nay, she sat there with perfect
indifference and allowed the maid to carry out this duty, and to hit
the big cock (who opposed himself to the state of things and evinced
decided resistance to her authority) a good sharp whang with her whip.
For the love-pain which was rending her own heart was making her
indifferent to the troubles of the dear pupils of her happier
hours--those which she devoted to their up-bringing, although she had
never studied Chesterfield or Knigge, or consulted Madame de Genlis, or
any of those other authorities on the mental culture of the young, who
know to a hair's-breadth exactly how they ought to be moulded. In this
respect she really had laid herself open to censure on the score of
lack of due seriousness.

All that day Cordovanspitz had not shown himself, but had been shut up
in the tower with Herr Dapsul, no doubt assisting in the carrying on of
important operations. But now Fraeulein Aennchen caught sight of the
little creature coming tottering across the courtyard in the glowing
light of the setting sun. And it struck her that he looked more hideous
in that yellow habit of his than he had ever done before. The
ridiculous manner in which he went wavering about, jumping here and
there, seeming to topple over every minute and then pick himself up
again (at which anybody else would have died of laughing), only caused
her the bitterer distress. Indeed, she at last held her hands in front
of her eyes, that she mightn't so much as see the little horrid
creature at all. Suddenly she felt something tugging at her dress, and
cried "Down, Feldmann!" thinking it was the Dachshund. But it was not
the dog; and what Fraeulein Aennchen saw when she took her hands from
her eyes was the Herr Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, who hoisted
himself into her lap with extraordinary deftness, and clasped both his
arms about her. She screamed aloud with fear and disgust, and started
up from her chair. But Cordovanspitz kept clinging on to her neck, and
instantly became so wonderfully heavy that he seemed to weigh a ton at
least, and he dragged the unfortunate Aennchen back again into her
chair. Having got her there, however, he slid down out of her lap, sank
on one knee as gracefully as possible, and as prettily as his weakness
in the direction of equilibrium permitted, and said, in a clear
voice--rather peculiar, b