said this she turned red and quickly breaking off the
conversation, started toward the house to help her Ladyship change her
clothes. For it was doubtful whether Johanna was there. She hung
around a good deal over at the "office" nowadays, because there was
less to do at home and Frederick and Christel were too tedious for her
and never knew anything.

Annie was still asleep. Effi leaned over the cradle, then had her hat
and raincoat taken off and sat down upon the little sofa in her
bedroom. She slowly stroked back her moist hair, laid her feet on a
stool, which Roswitha drew up to her, and said, as she evidently
enjoyed the comfort of resting after a rather long walk: "Roswitha, I
must remind you that Kruse is married."

"I know it, your Ladyship."

"Yes, what all doesn't one know, and yet one acts as though one did
_not_ know. Nothing can ever come of this."

"Nothing is supposed to come of it, your Ladyship."

"If you think she is an invalid you are reckoning without your host.
Invalids live the longest. Besides she has the black chicken. Beware
of it. It knows everything and tattles everything. I don't know, it
makes me shudder. And I'll wager all that business upstairs has some
connection with this chicken."

"Oh, I don't believe it. But it is terrible just the same, and Kruse,
who always sides himself against his wife, cannot talk me out of it."

"What did he say?"

"He said it was nothing but mice."

"Well, mice are quite bad enough. I can't bear mice. But, to change
the subject, I saw you chatting with Kruse, plainly, also your
familiar actions, and in fact I think you were going to paint a
moustache on his lip. That I call pretty far advanced. A little later
you will be jilted. You are still a smug person and have your charms.
But beware, that is all I have to say to you. Just what was your
experience the first time? Was it such that you can tell me about it?"

"Oh, I can tell you. But it was terrible. And because it was so
terrible, your Ladyship's mind can be perfectly easy with regard to
Kruse. A girl who has gone through what I did has enough of it and
takes care. I still dream of it occasionally and then I am all knocked
to pieces the next day. Such awful fright."

Effi sat up and leaned her head on her arm. "Tell me about it, and how
it came about. I know from my observations at home that it is always
the same story with you girls."

"Yes, no doubt it is always the same at first, and I am