Elsa could have listened all night long; but Meta, who had gone through such an eventful day, and had never quite got over the habit of being tired to death at ten o'clock at latest, could hardly keep her eyes open while she talked, so Elsa put her to bed and kissed the good little thing, who put her arms round her neck and murmured sleepily: "Is it not, Elsa--blue tarletane--compass--one more kiss!" and before Elsa had drawn herself up again was fast asleep. CHAPTER IX. Meta carried out her heroic design without allowing herself to be intimidated by anything, even by Aunt Rikchen's spectacles, "And they are no joke," said Meta, when in the evening she reported the result of the first sitting. "I could easier hold out against Baroness Kniehreche's eye-glasses. Behind those there is nothing but a pair of old blind eyes, of which I feel anything but fear; but when Aunt Rikchen allows her spectacles to slip to the end of her nose, she then begins really to see so clearly, that one would feel anxious and uneasy if one had not so good a conscience. And do you know, Elsa, that something particular must have occurred between you and the Schmidts--what, I am quite in the dark about, as the good lady mixes everything together higgledy-piggledy; but she is very angry with you Werbens, as papa is with the Griebens, our neighbours, who are always trespassing on his boundaries, he says; and you must have been trespassing on the Schmidts, and that is the reason, you may depend upon it, why Reinhold has got so distant. We shall hear nothing from him; but Aunt Rikchen never can keep anything to herself, and we are already the best of friends. She says I am a good girl, and that after all I really had nothing to do with it, and the dove who brought the olive branch from the earth did not know either what it had in its beak: and then I saw that Reinhold, who was in the studio with me, looked at her, and Herr Anders also looked quite grave, and glanced again at Reinhold. They three know something, that much is clear, and I will find it out, you may depend upon it."