What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to place, from one indignant _Hausfrau_ to another, ever since she left school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it would only be just and right." Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can hardly be called by that pretty name. "Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell." And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years. "As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply. CHAPTER XVI But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to Anna and ate _Leberwurst_ in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul--what does it