"It _is_ damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go on to the path?" On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. "My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you----" And she led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning concerning the engaging of a new cook. There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen obtained--but it was a big one--was a reluctantly given invitation, on his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's house, and to sleep there. "You are too good, _meine Gnädigste_," he said, consoled by this for the _tête-à-tête_ he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way inconveniences you--we soldiers are used to roughing it----" "But not like that, not like that, _lieber Junge_," interrupted his mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the measles." That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she asked the princess to order a room to be got ready. It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?" It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have found that not one was missing. Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate slumber during the sermon. The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber. "Who _is_ Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon.