"Oh, I am not good, only so happy--I have everything in the world that I have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all there is nothing more I can think of that I want." "_Ach_," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or cousins, who would come and stay with you?" "Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they wouldn't like staying here with me at all." "They would not like staying with you? How strange." "Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I can be in my own house." "And your friends--they too will not come?" "I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them." "You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that you should not be so lonely?" "But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived with." "Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?" "Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have some of my nice things too." "But not your own friends and relations?" "They have everything they want." There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She was thinking that this was a queer little person--outside, that is. Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people would call these questions rude. But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full of doubts than ever. When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. Then she opened the door softly and looked in. These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart. What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears. "Oh--what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and hurrying in.