Pass the time? I who am so much afraid of Time's passing me that I try to catch at him as he goes, pull him back, make him creep slowly while I squeeze the full preciousness out of every minute? I gazed at her abstractedly, haunted by the recollection of flying days, days gone so quickly, vanished before I well knew how happy I was being. 'I really couldn't tell you,' I said. 'Hard-working, clean, honest,--' read out the Fräulein, reminding me that I was busy. 'Moral,' I dictated, 'able to wash--' 'You will never find one,' interrupted Frau Meyer again. 'At least, never one who is both moral and able to wash. Two good things don't go together with these girls, I find. The trouble I am in for want of one! They are as scarce and as expensive as roses in December. Since April I have had three, and all had to leave by the merest accident--nothing at all to do with the place or me; but the ones in there seem to know there have been three in the time, and make the most extravagant demands. I have been here the whole morning, and am in despair.' She stopped to fan herself with her handkerchief. 'Able to wash,' I resumed, 'iron, cook, mend--have you any one suitable, Fräulein?' 'Many,' was the laconic answer. 'I'm afraid we cannot give more than a hundred and sixty marks,' said I. 'Pooh,' said Frau Meyer; and there was a pause in the scratching of the pen. 'But there are no children,' I continued. The pen went on more glibly. Frau Meyer fanned herself harder. 'And only two _Herrschaften_.' The pen skimmed over the paper. 'We live up--we live up on the Galgenberg.' The pen stopped dead. 'You will never find one who will go up there,' cried Frau Meyer triumphantly. 'I need not fear your taking a good one away from me. They will not leave the town.' The Fräulein rang a bell and called out a name. 'It is another one for you, Frau Doctor,' she said; and a large young lady came in from the other room. 'The general servant Fräulein Ottilie Krummacher--Frau Doctor Meyer,' introduced the Fräulein. 'I think you may suit each other.' 'It is time you showed me some one who will,' groaned Frau Meyer. 'Six have I already interviewed, and the demands of all are enough to make my mother, who was Frau Gutsbesitzer Grosskopf of the Grosskopfs of Grosskopfsecke, born Knoblauch, and a lady of the most exact knowledge in household matters, turn in her grave.' 'Town?' asked the large girl quickly, hardly allowing Frau Meyer to get to a full stop, and obviously callous as to the Grosskopfs of Grosskopfsecke. 'Yes, yes--here, overlooking the market-place and the interesting statue of the electoral founder of the University. No way to go, therefore, to market. Enlivening scenes constantly visible from the windows--' 'Which floor?' 'Second. Shallow steps, and a nice balustrade. Really hardly higher than the first floor, or even than an ordinary ground floor, the rooms being very low.' 'Washing?'