bles
like that one, to bring the roses into your cheeks. We shall be
good Kameraden, as you and this little Griffith are--what is it they
say--good fellows? That is it--good fellows, yes? So, shall we shake
hands on it?"

But I snatched my hand away. "I don't want to be a good fellow," I
cried. "I'm tired of being a good fellow. I've been a good fellow for
years and years, while every other married woman in the world has been
happy in her own home, bringing up her babies. When I am old I want some
sons to worry me, too, and to stay awake nights for, and some daughters
to keep me young, and to prevent me from doing my hair in a knob and
wearing bonnets! I hate good-fellow women, and so do you, and so does
every one else! I--I--"

"Dawn!" cried Von Gerhard. But I ran up the steps and into the house and
slammed the door behind me, leaving him standing there.

CHAPTER IX. THE LADY FROM VIENNA

Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is a lady aborigine. They
made their entrance at supper and I forgot to eat, watching them. The
new-comers are from Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a woman
of noble birth, with a history. Their combined appearance is calculated
to strike terror to the heart. He is daringly ugly, with a chin that
curves in under his lip and then out in a peak, like pictures of Punch.
She wore a gray gown of a style I never had seen before and never expect
to see again. It was fastened with huge black buttons all the way down
the breathlessly tight front, and the upper part was composed of that
pre-historic garment known as a basque. She curved in where she should
have curved out, and she bulged where she should have had "lines." About
her neck was suspended a string of cannon-ball beads that clanked as she
walked. On her forehead rested a sparse fringe.

"Mein Himmel!" thought I. "Am I dreaming? This isn't Wisconsin. This is
Nurnberg, or Strassburg, with a dash of Heidelberg and Berlin thrown in.
Dawn, old girl, it's going to be more instructive than a Cook's tour."

That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever made.

The first surprising thing that the new-comers did was to seat
themselves at the long table with the other aborigines, the lady
aborigine being the only woman among the twelve men. It was plain that
they had known one another previous to this meeting, for they became
very good friends at once, and the men grew heavily humorous about there
being thirteen at tabl