igh enough? Shall I
not bring the foot-warmer?"

"You shall not bring any thing, nor do any thing more. You are a
hypocrite, who connives with Moritz. Leave my house this very hour! You
are dismissed my service. Go pack up your things and be off!" cried Frau
von Werrig.

"Oh, do not go, Trude, for mercy's sake, for then I have no one to help
me," cried the general.

"I cannot do otherwise, she has given me my dismissal." Trude approached
Frau von Werrig respectfully, saying, "So I must pack up and go away at
once?"

"Immediately, you deceitful creature!"

"Immediately! but Frau von Werrig will be so good as to give me my
wages."

"Yes," she answered in a slower and more subdued voice. "That shall be
done presently."

"It will not be so very difficult to reckon them, I have been here
twenty years; just as many years as Marie is old, for I came as child's
nurse, and have helped her learn to talk and walk, and played mother
to the dear child a bit. Then I obtained my wages, for they were good
times; but the pension-time came, and we had no cook or servant but me.
'The rats run away if the ship springs a leak,' but the old mole Trude
stayed. Mankind is in the world to work, I said, and why should not I be
the cook and waiting-maid too, that my little Marie should not want any
thing? So I became maid-of-all-work and have stayed here ever since.
Then, you told me you would double my wages, and give me twenty thalers
a year, and four thalers at Christmas. Is it not so, Frau von Werrig?"

"I believe that was the agreement."

"I am quite certain about it," cried the general, who began to
understand the drift of Trude. "Yes, Trude was to have twenty thalers
a year, and we are owing her many years' wages. You know, wife, I have
always kept an account-book for the debts, and only a few days ago--Oh!
oh! the pain! Trude, help me cover up the foot warmer!--we reckoned it
up a few days ago, and we owe Trude one hundred and thirty thalers."

"One hundred and thirty thalers," repeated Trude, clapping her hands,
astonished. "Is it true? oh, that is splendid. I shall be rich, and get
a husband yet. I pray you give it to me, Frau von Werrig, right away."

"Not so quickly," said she, proudly. "We will reckon together how much
you have saved--because--"

"Oh!" interrupted Trude, "how good you are to make me keep so much; you
are my savings bank, where I can deposit my money."

"Because," she continued, with emphasis, without