What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in its three forms _feine_, _bürgerliche_, and _Hausmannskost_, in all which forms she was preëminent in skill--she would have mused, that is, on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes--also a form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his mother's Dettingen blood that the first Fürst Penheim owed the energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the