"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the dearth of nice ones--how few there are that one likes to be with and wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly." "So he is," agreed Anna. "There is goodness written on every line of his face." "Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in doing its best. "If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she should marry Axel Lohm." "If _I_ had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And there'd be an end of _that_." The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising prelude to love. "Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully with life--as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.