her round, bright countenance and laughing eyes. She soon became very
intimate with my mother, and my second sister, Paula, was her special
favorite, on whom she lavished every indulgence. Her horses were the
first ones on which I was lifted, and she often took us with her in the
carriage or sent us to ride in it.

I still remember distinctly some parts of our garden, especially
the shady avenue leading from our balcony on the ground floor to the
Schafgraben, the pond, the beautiful flower-beds in front of Frau
Reichert's stately house, and the field of potatoes where I--the
gardener was the huntsman--saw my first partridge shot. This was
probably on the very spot where for many years the notes of the organ
have pealed through the Matthaikirche, and the Word of God has been
expounded to a congregation whose residences stand on the playground of
my childhood.

The house which sheltered us was only two stories high, but pretty and
spacious. We needed abundant room, for, besides my mother, the five
children, and the female servants, accommodation was required for the
governess, and a man who held a position midway between porter and
butler and deserved the title of factotum if any one ever did. His name
was Kurschner; he was a big-boned, square-built fellow about thirty
years old, who always wore in his buttonhole the little ribbon of the
order he had gained as a soldier at the siege of Antwerp, and who had
been taken into the house by our mother for our protection, for in
winter our home, surrounded by its spacious grounds, was very lonely.

As for us five children, first came my oldest sister Martha--now, alas!
dead--the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Curt von Brandenstein, and my
brother Martin, who were seven and five years older than I. They were,
of course, treated differently from us younger ones.

Paula was my senior by three years; Ludwig, or Ludo--he was called by
his nickname all his life--by a year and a half.

Paula, a fresh, pretty, bright, daring child, was often the leader in
our games and undertakings. Ludo, who afterward became a soldier and
as a Prussian officer did good service in the war, was a gentle boy,
somewhat delicate in health--the broad-shouldered man shows no trace
of it--and the best of playfellows. We were always together, and were
frequently mistaken for twins. We shared everything, and on my birthday,
gifts were bestowed on him too; on his, upon me.

Each had forgotten the first p