'Not very much,' admitted Dolly with wistful penitence. 'And it has all been my fault.' But what I was thinking was that Kitty never has any peace of mind because she hasn't any mind to have peace in. I didn't say this, however. I practised tact. _Later._ Well, it has come off. Mrs. Barnes is out of the hall, and at this very moment Uncle Rudolph and Dolly are alone together in it, proposing and being proposed to. He is telling her that he worships her, and in reply she is gently drawing his attention to Siegfried and Juchs. How much will he mind them? Will he mind them at all? Will his love triumphantly consume them, or, having swallowed Siegfried, will he find himself unable to manage Juchs? Oh, I love people to be happy! I love them to love each other! I do hope it will be all right! Dolly may say what she likes, but love is the only thing in the world that works miracles. Look at Uncle Rudolph. I'm more doubtful, though, of the result than I would have been yesterday, because what brought about Mrs. Barnes's absence from the hall has made me nervous as to how he will face the disclosing of Juchs. While I'm waiting I may as well write it down,--by my clock I count up that Dolly must be a third of the way through Siegfried now, so that I've still got three quarters of an hour. This is what happened: The morning started badly, indeed terribly. Dolly, bored by being stared at in silence, said something about more wool and went upstairs quite soon after breakfast. My uncle, casting a despairing glance at the window past which the snow was driving, scowled for a moment or two at Mrs. Barnes, then picked up a stale _Times_ and hid himself behind it. To make up for his really dreadful scowl at Mrs. Barnes I began a pleasant conversation with her, but at once she checked me, saying, 'Sh--sh--,' and deferentially indicating, with her knitting needle, my reading uncle. Incensed by such slavishness, I was about to rebel and insist on talking when he, stirred apparently by something of a bloodthirsty nature that he saw in the _Times_, exclaimed in a very loud voice, 'Search as I may--and I have searched most diligently--I can't find a single good word to say for Germans.' It fell like a bomb. He hasn't mentioned Germans once. I had come to feel quite safe. The shock of it left me dumb. Mrs. Barnes's knitting needles stopped as if struck. I didn't dare look at her. Dead silence. My uncle lowered the paper and glanced round at us, expecting agreement, impatient of our not instantly saying we thought as he did. 'Can _you_?' he asked me, as I said nothing, being petrified. I was just able to shake my head. 'Can _you_?' he asked, turning to Mrs. Barnes. Her surprising answer--surprising, naturally, to my uncle--was to get up quickly, drop all her wool on the floor, and hurry upstairs. He watched her departure with amazement. Still with amazement, when she had disappeared, his eyes sought mine.