at. Put it
into the basket."

"But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you
must hear it; it is so funny and so nice."

"So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged."

"But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here
are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a
stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such
torrents of love! You must listen."

Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the
smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence,
she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and
told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting
on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can
adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes?
Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and
talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your
precious time.--Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock."

"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they
do. Let us hope not. _Petites sottes._"

"You will sign the photographs, Tante--and you will say, yes, you
must--'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful."

"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for
the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the
photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for
music, _parbleu_! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think,
among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my
principles to encourage the _schwaermerei_ of schoolgirls. There," she
signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and illegible
hand, adding, with a smile up at Karen,--"To my kind little admirers."

Karen, satisfied, examined the signatures, held them to the fire for a
moment to preserve their vivid black in bold relief, and then put them
into their envelope, dropping in a small slip of paper upon which she
had written: "Her eyes are grey, flecked with black, and are not
velvety."

They had now reached the end of the letters.

"A very good, helpful child it is," said Madame von Marwitz. "You are
methodical, Karen. You will make a good housewife. That has never been
my talent."

"And it is my only one," said Karen.

"Ah, well, no; it is a good, solid little head in