et
times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with
my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a
strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?"

Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew
had never entered her thoughts. "No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?"

"Yes, he came with me," said Madame von Marwitz. "I had promised him
that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an
occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were
free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others.
Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must
all work, _ma cherie_. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our
only nourishment in the desert places." Again she looked about the room.
"You came without boxes?"

"Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me."

"Ah, yes. When," said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, "did you
leave? Yesterday morning?"

"No, Tante. The night before."

"The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs.
Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton."

"No. I went to the Lippheims."

"The Lippheims? So?"

"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could
not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind."

"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would
cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am
sorry to have missed Lise."

"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I
think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much
to do."

"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank
if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she
not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the
quartette,"--Madame von Marwitz smiled--she was in a mildly merry mood.
"But on they go--four, five, six, seven, eight--how many are there--_bon
Dieu!_ of how many am I the god-mother? One grows bewildered. It is
almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the
small round eye and the fat body."

"Oh--not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained.

"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit
has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look--is
not so the mother, i