"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice chat." She made room for her on the sofa. "Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fräulein Kuhräuber, and Anna was the only person in the house who called her so. "She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, feel at ease with us." "That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna. "Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fräulein Kuhräuber, and we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first opportunity." "Certainly," said the baroness. "It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your eyes." "It is truly surprising," said the baroness. "But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very--not quite--well, not _very_ kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?" "My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fräulein Kuhräuber." "Or even endure her," amended the baroness. "And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said Anna. "You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann. "We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the baroness. "Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the baroness, "is a very dreadful thing." "Certainly," agreed the baroness. Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so often--I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red eyes--that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in her, and not minding the rest." "My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her." "Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness. "And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, shall?" They thought this profane. "We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our duty to ask you if you know what her father was." "He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of Fräulein Kuhräuber's reply to her inquiries. "Exactly. But of what letters?" "She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness.