Rychie, Hilda, and Katrinka--why, they had scarcely known any other thought than “The race, the race. It will come off on the twentieth!” These three girls were friends. Though of nearly the same age, talent, and station, they were as different as girls could be. Hilda van Gleck, as you already know, was a warm-hearted, noble girl of fourteen. Rychie Korbes was beautiful to look upon, far more sparkling and pretty than Hilda but not half so bright and sunny within. Clouds of pride, of discontent, and envy had already gathered in her heart and were growing bigger and darker every day. Of course, these often relieved themselves very much after the manner of other clouds. But who saw the storms and the weeping? Only her maid or her father, mother, and little brother--those who loved her better than all. Like other clouds, too, hers often took queer shapes, and what was really but mist and vapory fancy assumed the appearance of monster wrongs and mountains of difficulty. To her mind, the poor peasant girl Gretel was not a human being, a God-created creature like herself--she was only something that meant poverty, rags, and dirt. Such as Gretel had no right to feel, to hope; above all, they should never cross the paths of their betters--that is, not in a disagreeable way. They could toil and labor for them at a respectful distance, even admire them, if they would do it humbly, but nothing more. If they rebel, put them down; if they suffer, “Don’t trouble me about it” was Rychie’s secret motto. And yet how witty she was, how tastefully she dressed, how charmingly she sang; how much feeling she displayed (for pet kittens and rabbits), and how completely she could bewitch sensible, honest-minded lads like Lambert van Mounen and Ludwig van Holp! Carl was too much like her, within, to be an earnest admirer, and perhaps he suspected the clouds. He, being deep and surly and always uncomfortably in earnest, of course preferred the lively Katrinka, whose nature was made of a hundred tinkling bells. She was a coquette in her infancy, a coquette in her childhood, and now a coquette in her school days. Without a thought of harm she coquetted with her studies, her duties, even her little troubles. She coquetted with her mother, her pet lamb, her baby brother, even with her own golden curls--tossing them back as if she despised them. Everyone liked her, but who could love her? She was never in earnest. A pleasant face, a pleasant heart, a pleasant manner--these satisfy for an hour. Poor happy Katrinka! She tinkled, tinkled so merrily through their early days, but life is so apt to coquette with them in turn, to put all their sweet bells out of tune or to silence them one by one!