"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found ourselves all entering your carriage." "The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness. "We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we are connected with nearly everybody." The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for connections. But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as _Stütze der Hausfrau_. These _Stütze_, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the children--being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms.