“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “if I knew how to type better and faster, and something of shorthand, I’d be ever so much more useful ... to you, and--and in general ... I wrote to a business school near here, and I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll take a course there in shorthand and typing. Three evenings a week, from seven to nine.” But Miss Eppendorfer protested, begged her to put it off and not to leave her so much alone. She was afraid of this plan, afraid that she would, by it, lose this girl she so much needed. “Just wait a month, dear, won’t you? Till the days are longer?” It seemed an idiotic reason to Frances, and she looked obstinate. “Perhaps I could take the course with you,” Miss Eppendorfer suggested, “I think I’d enjoy it.” That idea didn’t please Frankie at all; the thought of going to school with anyone of Miss Eppendorfer’s age, appearance and temperament was appalling. She imagined what people would say--how they would be ridiculed. She was obliged to postpone the plan for a time, until she could think of a different way of presenting it.... Chance gave her an opportunity very soon. One morning the telephone rang, in itself a rare happening, and she hurried to answer it, as the authoress was asleep. “Is this Miss Eppendorfer?” enquired a high, loud voice with an exaggerated London accent. “Oh, her secretary! Very well! You will please to tell Miss Eppendorfer that her cousin Kurt Hassler from Hamburg is here, and would like to call.” “She’s not awake yet,” Frances explained, “but if you’ll leave your number----” “The Ritz,” he replied haughtily. “Find it in the telephone directory. I am here until one.” She had scarcely replaced the receiver when Miss Eppendorfer opened the door of her room and stood smiling absent-mindedly at her. “I thought I heard the telephone,” she said. “You did. It was your cousin from Hamburg. He wants to see you.” Miss Eppendorfer became immensely excited, and insisted upon Frankie’s calling him up at once. “I’m too nervous,” she said. “Tell him to come to-night for dinner at seven.” He accepted the invitation, and the authoress was delighted. “I haven’t seen him since he was a child,” she told Frankie, “but I’ve heard lots about him. He went to Heidelberg, and then he went into his father’s business and he’s done wonderfully well, they say. He speaks English, French and Spanish perfectly.” “Are you a German then?” Frankie asked. “No; my father was, but I’m not. I’m American through and through. I can’t even speak German. If Kurt didn’t speak English, I don’t know what I’d do.” While she drank her coffee, Miss Eppendorfer ingenuously confided to Frances her great desire to impress Mr. Hassler.