“How I should adore to kiss you,” murmured the student. “But you know I am suffering from severe nasal catarrh, and I dare not risk giving it to you. Sixteen times last night did I count myself sneezing. And three different handkerchiefs.” I threw Mörike into the lilac bush, and went back to the house. A great automobile snorted at the front door. In the salon great commotion. The Baroness was paying a surprise visit to her little daughter. Clad in a yellow mackintosh she stood in the middle of the room questioning the manager. And every guest the pension contained was grouped about her, even the Frau Doktor, presumably examining a timetable, as near to the august skirts as possible. “But where is my maid?” asked the Baroness. “There was no maid,” replied the manager, “save for your gracious sister and daughter.” “Sister!” she cried sharply. “Fool, I have no sister. My child travelled with the daughter of my dressmaker.” Tableau grandissimo! FRAU FISCHER Frau Fischer was the fortunate possessor of a candle factory somewhere on the banks of the Eger, and once a year she ceased from her labours to make a “cure” in Dorschausen, arriving with a dress-basket neatly covered in a black tarpaulin and a hand-bag. The latter contained amongst her handkerchiefs, eau de Cologne, toothpicks, and a certain woollen muffler very comforting to the “magen,” samples of her skill in candle-making, to be offered up as tokens of thanksgiving when her holiday time was over. Four of the clock one July afternoon she appeared at the Pension Müller. I was sitting in the arbour and watched her bustling up the path followed by the red-bearded porter with her dress-basket in his arms and a sunflower between his teeth. The widow and her five innocent daughters stood tastefully grouped upon the steps in appropriate attitudes of welcome; and the greetings were so long and loud that I felt a sympathetic glow. “What a journey!” cried the Frau Fischer. “And nothing to eat in the train—nothing solid. I assure you the sides of my stomach are flapping together. But I must not spoil my appetite for dinner—just a cup of coffee in my room. Bertha,” turning to the youngest of the five, “how changed! What a bust! Frau Hartmann, I congratulate you.” Once again the Widow seized Frau Fischer’s hands. “Kathi, too, a splendid woman; but a little pale. Perhaps the young man from Nürnberg is here again this year. How you keep them all I don’t know. Each year I come expecting to find you with an empty nest. It’s surprising.” Frau Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: “We are such a happy family since my dear man died.” “But these marriages—one must have courage; and after all, give them time, they all make the happy family bigger—thank God for that.... Are there many people here just now?” “Every room engaged.”