ery now
and then on the back, which made him nearly faint with joy each time,
and wished it weren't breakfast and only coffee, because he would have
liked to drink our healths,--"The healths of these two delightful young
roses," he said, bowing to Frau Bornsted and me, "the Rose of
England--long live England, which produces such flowers--and the Rose
of Germany, our own wild forest rose."

I laughed, and Frau Bornsted looked sedately indulgent,--I suppose
because he is a great man, this staff officer, who helps work out all
the wonderful plans that are some day to make Germany able to conquer
the world; but, as she explained to me the other day when I said
something about her eyelashes being so long and pretty, prettiness is
out of place in her position, and she prefers it not mentioned. "What
has the wife of an Oberforster to do with prettiness?" she asked.
"It is good for a _junges Madchen_, who has still to find a husband,
but once she has him why be pretty? To be pretty when you are a
married woman is only an undesirability. It exposes one easily to
comment, and might cause, if one had not a solid character, an
ever-afterwards-to-be-regretted expenditure on clothes."

The men were going to shoot with the Oberforster after breakfast and be
all day in the forest, and the Colonel was going back to Berlin by the
night train. He said he was leaving his lieutenant at Koseritz for a
few days, but that he himself had to get back into harness at
once,--"While the young one plays around," he said, slapping Herr von
Inster on the back this time instead of the Oberforster, "among the
varied and delightful flora of our old German forests. Here this
nosegay," he said, sweeping his arm in our direction, "and there at
Koseritz--" sweeping his arm in the other direction, "a nosegay no less
charming but more hot-house,--the _schone_ Helena and her young lady
friends."

I asked Herr von Inster after breakfast, when we were alone for a
moment in the garden, what his Colonel was like after dinner, if even
breakfast made him so jovial.

"He is very clever," he said. "He is one of our cleverest officers on
the Staff, and this is how he hides it."

"Oh," I said; for I thought it a funny explanation. Why hide it?

Perhaps that is what's the matter with the Graf,--he's hiding how
clever _he_ is.

But that Colonel certainly does seem clever. He asked where we live in
England; a poser, rather, considering we don't at present l