"But I thought a Treumann----" murmured Anna, more and more frightened at herself, but impelled to go on. "Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty." Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the gulls. "You are going to keep the baroness?" "If she cares to stay, yes." "I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your house. But what would you do if this--this Lolli came down to see her sister?" "I really cannot tell." "Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you." So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else." "Ah--and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen--and you avoid me--you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like being with me." Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She thought, "I will ask Axel"--and then remembered that there was no Axel to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful. "Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of servants before that. "You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?" "That makes me think so much of mothers." The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose recovery was slow, was up in her room. "What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess. "I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly." "So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to set things right again.