The priest drew back, with a sorrowful gesture. “It’s Mrs. Kellar,” he said. “She is what we call our Matron, for want of a better name; _die Hausfrau_, the Germans call her. She sees to the rooms, gives out the bed-linen and so on, and is an invaluable person, so clean and conscientious. But—well, one must have _les défauts de ses qualités_, as the French say; and though she is a born ruler and manager, she _has_ got a tongue and a temper. Of course, she has a pass-key to every room, and I suppose something has gone wrong in here, and she is scolding the unfortunate perpetrator.” “Then we had better go in; I dare say it is nothing of any consequence that has happened,” said Ernest Clare, much amused by his friend’s correct English, which betrayed an inward perturbation very flattering to Frau Kellar’s powers of eloquence. “I suppose we had,” said the little man hesitatingly; but with the touch of the door-knob his courage seemed to return. “Sure, she’s a well-meaning woman,” he said with a smile; “and as for temper, it’s not an Irishman that can cast a stone at her, from Malachi with the Collar of Gold, to the blessed St. Kevin himself.” “Here he opened wide the door;” but there was a great deal more than darkness within. It was a neatly but plainly furnished sitting-room, with a brown-painted pine table, covered with a red cloth, four cane-seated chairs, and one large rocking-chair, a few empty pine bookshelves lining one side, an engraving or so, and a cheerful-looking carpet, on which—alas!—a hod of coals had been overturned. A small, pale, nervous-looking girl, with weak blue eyes and reddish hair, was on her knees beside the coals, picking them up in a weakly ineffective manner, that seemed to add fuel to the flame of Frau Kellar’s righteous anger, to the outpouring of which the victim returned no answer save the tears which dropped fast over the bridge of her nose, and, being brushed aside by a grimy hand, by no means added to her beauty. The entrance of the two clergymen seemed to put the last stroke to her misery, for she immediately fell over on her face upon the coals, and lay there, making no sound, but shaking from head to foot with hysterical passion. “Why, what’s all this?” said the priest good-humoredly. “Is that Lena Schaefer? You haven’t been making Lena cry, Mrs. Kellar?” “The lazy good-for-nothing!” cried Mrs. Kellar. “Will tears pick up the coals, I should like to know?” “Not so well as a pair of hands,” said Mr. Clare cheerfully. “Come, Miss Lena, since this is to be my room, I have the best right to work in it, haven’t I?” He picked up the thin, light form as if she had been a child, and set her, literally, to dry off, in the rocking-chair, which she only half filled, and whence, overcome with amazement, she peeped from under the shadow of her apron at the handsome gentleman on his knees remedying the results of her carelessness.