To my plebeian eyes that afflicted child was singularly unattractive. She had the air of having been perpetually washed with a blue bag, and hair like grey wool—dressed, too, in a pinafore so stiffly starched that she could only peer at us over the frill of it—a social barrier of a pinafore—and perhaps it was too much to expect a noble aunt to attend to the menial consideration of her niece’s ears. But a dumb niece with unwashed ears struck me as a most depressing object. They were given places at the head of the table. For a moment we all looked at one another with an eena-deena-dina-do expression. Then the Frau Oberregierungsrat: “I hope you are not tired after your journey.” “No,” said the sister of the Baroness, smiling into her cup. “I hope the dear child is not tired,” said the Frau Doktor. “Not at all.” “I expect, I hope you will sleep well to-night,” the Herr Oberlehrer said reverently. “Yes.” The poet from Munich never took his eyes off the pair. He allowed his tie to absorb most of his coffee while he gazed at them exceedingly soulfully. Unyoking Pegasus, thought I. Death spasms of his Odes to Solitude! There were possibilities in that young woman for an inspiration, not to mention a dedication, and from that moment his suffering temperament took up its bed and walked. They retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure. “There is a likeness,” mused the Frau Doktor. “Quite. What a manner she has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child.” “Pity she has the child to attend to,” exclaimed the student from Bonn. He had hitherto relied upon three scars and a ribbon to produce an effect, but the sister of a Baroness demanded more than these. Absorbing days followed. Had she been one whit less beautifully born we could not have endured the continual conversation about her, the songs in her praise, the detailed account of her movements. But she graciously suffered our worship and we were more than content. The poet she took into her confidence. He carried her books when we went walking, he jumped the afflicted one on his knee—poetic licence, this—and one morning brought his notebook into the salon and read to us. “The sister of the Baroness has assured me she is going into a convent,” he said. (That made the student from Bonn sit up.) “I have written these few lines last night from my window in the sweet night air—” “Oh, your _delicate_ chest,” commented the Frau Doktor. He fixed a stony eye on her, and she blushed. “I have written these lines: “‘Ah, will you to a convent fly, So young, so fresh, so fair? Spring like a doe upon the fields And find your beauty there.’” Nine verses equally lovely commanded her to equally violent action. I am certain that had she followed his advice not even the remainder of her life in a convent would have given her time to recover her breath. “I have presented her with a copy,” he said. “And to-day we are going to look for wild flowers in the wood.”