e day
when Annie was returning from school Roswitha went out to meet her and
was challenged by her to a race up the stairs. When Annie reached the
top she stumbled and fell upon a scraper, cutting an ugly gash in her
forehead. Roswitha and Johanna washed the wound with cold water and
decided to tie it up with the long bandage once used to bind the
mother's sprained ankle. In their search for the bandage they broke
open the lock to the sewing table drawers, which they began to empty
of their contents. Among other things they took out a small package of
letters tied up with a red silk cord. Before they had ended the search
Innstetten came home. He examined the wound and sent for Dr.
Rummschuettel. After scolding Annie and telling her what she must do
till her mother came home, he sat down with her to dine and promised
to read her a letter just received from her mother.]

CHAPTER XXVII

For a while Innstetten sat at the table with Annie in silence.
Finally, when the stillness became painful to him, he asked her a few
questions about the school superintendent and which teacher she liked
best. She answered rather listlessly, because she felt he was not
paying much attention. The situation was not improved till Johanna
whispered to little Annie, after the second course, that there was
something else to come. And surely enough, good Roswitha, who felt
under obligation to her pet on this unlucky day, had prepared
something extra. She had risen to an omelet with sliced apple filling.

The sight of it made Annie somewhat more talkative. Innstetten's frame
of mind was likewise bettered when the doorbell rang a moment later
and Dr. Rummschuettel entered, quite accidentally. He had just dropped
in, without any suspicion that he had been sent for. He approved of
the compresses. "Send for some Goulard water and keep Annie at home
tomorrow. Quiet is the best remedy." Then he asked further about her
Ladyship and what kind of news had been received from Ems, and said he
would come again the next day to see the patient.

When they got up from the table and went into the adjoining room,
where the bandage had been searched for so zealously, albeit in vain,
Annie was again laid upon the sofa. Johanna came and sat down beside
her, while Innstetten began to put back into the sewing table the
countless things that still lay in gay confusion upon the window sill.
Now and then he was at a loss to know what to do and was obliged to
as