h that cap of yours. A light modern craft like our Marianne
sails in different waters from such a venerable ship of virtue--eh,
Frau Marianne?"

"Oh, really, captain," pouted the little woman. "Do you think I am not
serious about all this?" And once more she paraded her virtues and her
edifying design before the eyes of the good old woman and Herr
Rauchfuss.

"A devil of a girl!" muttered the captain in his red beard.

"Oh yes," said the neat little woman, making a charming gesture with
her little heart-shaped head, about which she had tied a snow-white
three-cornered piece of linen to give herself a tidy and almost nunlike
appearance--"oh yes, I like that! A devil of a girl.... Well, you'll
find out what sort of a girl I am if you ever get into my hands! I'd
take charge of the cooking as well--nobody knows how to get up tempting
little dishes for an invalid's appetite, so that his spirits begin to
come back to him at the very smell of the broth I make him. And another
thing I may say--with me a patient can save on doctors' visits. I
learned a great many things from my poor mother--all kinds of wonderful
remedies, for gout and things like that ... the doctors' noses are out
of joint.

"Haven't got it!" said the captain.

"Well, so much the better," said the little woman. "But I should be in
demand, I think. For who is there now? A couple of old slow-coaches,
that rattle at every move they make, and your friend the old
raven-mother, Frau Kummerfelden, whose rough paws would kill anything
at all delicate."

"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden, "you mustn't say anything about the
raven-mother--she's a splendid old soul."

"Soul, perhaps ... but a little too much body with it!" said the little
woman, spinning round to emphasize her dainty figure.

"Well, facts are facts," said Frau Kummerfelden. "The raven-mother is
perhaps a trifle massively built. To be sure, last winter, when I was
full of all kinds of pains, she picked me up out of bed and put me in
again like a child. It's true she puffed and snorted over it as if
she'd been Saint Christopher, which wouldn't suit everybody."

"No, no, no," said the little widow, "one must know how to move without
making a noise."

One day the pretty little woman said, "It's time for me to be getting
home now--my gentlemen will be waiting for me. One of them will need me
to get his beer for him."

"Gentlemen?" said the captain, taken aback. "What kind of gentlemen
have you