"Shall I send Annalise to you, ma'am?" asked Fritzing, standing in the
doorway.

"What can we do?" asked Priscilla, her eyes fixed on the tips of her
shoes in earnest thought. "Come in, Fritzi, and shut the door," she
added. "You don't behave a bit like an uncle." Then an idea struck
her, and looking up at him with sudden gaiety she said, "Can't we have
a hyphen?"

"A hyphen?"

"Yes, and be Neumann-Schultz?"

"Certainly we can," said Fritzing, his face clearing; how muddled he
must be getting not to have thought of it himself! "I will cause cards
to be printed at once, and we will be Neumann-Schultz. Ma'am, your
woman's wit--"

"Fritzi, you're deteriorating--you never flattered me at Kunitz. Let
us have tea. I invite you to tea with me. If you'll order it, I'll
pour it out for you and practice being a niece."

So the evening was spent in harmony; a harmony clouded at intervals,
it is true, first by Priscilla's disappointment about the cottage,
then by a certain restiveness she showed before the more blatant
inefficiencies of the Baker housekeeping, then by a marked and ever
recurring incapacity to adapt herself to her new environment, and
lastly and very heavily when Fritzing in the course of conversation
let drop the fact that he had said she was Maria-Theresa. This was a
very black cloud and hung about for a long while; but it too passed
away ultimately in a compromise reached after much discussion that
Ethel should be prefixed to Maria-Theresa; and before Priscilla went
to bed it had been arranged that Fritzing should go next morning
directly after a very early breakfast to Lady Shuttleworth and not
leave that lady's side and house till he had secured the cottage, and
the Princess for her part faithfully promised to remain within the
Baker boundaries during his absence.

VIII

Lady Shuttleworth then, busiest and most unsuspecting of women, was
whisking through her breakfast and her correspondence next morning
with her customary celerity and method, when a servant appeared and
offered her one of those leaves from Fritzing's note-book which we
know did duty as his cards.

Tussie was sitting at the other end of the table very limp and sad
after a night of tiresome tossing that was neither wholly sleep nor
wholly wakefulness, and sheltered by various dishes with spirit-lamps
burning beneath them worked gloomily at a sonnet inspired by the girl
he had met the day before while his mother thought he wa