"No, it is not situated here in our region; it is a long distance away from here, in Pomerania, in Farther Pomerania, in fact, which signifies nothing, however, for it is a watering place (every place about there is a summer resort), and the vacation journey that Baron Innstetten is now enjoying is in reality a tour of his cousins, or something of the sort. He wishes to visit his old friends and relatives here." "Has he relatives here?" "Yes and no, depending on how you look at it. There are no Innstettens here, there are none anywhere any more, I believe. But he has here distant cousins on his mother's side, and he doubtless wished above all to see Schwantikow once more and the Belling house, to which he was attached by so many memories. So he was over there the day before yesterday and today he plans to be here in Hohen-Cremmen." "And what does your father say about it?" "Nothing at all. It is not his way. Besides, he knows mama, you see. He only teases her." At this moment the clock struck twelve and before it had ceased striking, Wilke, the old factotum of the Briest family, came on the scene to give a message to Miss Effi: "Your Ladyship's mother sends the request that your Ladyship make her toilet in good season; the Baron will presumably drive up immediately after one o'clock." While Wilke was still delivering this message he began to put the ladies' work-table in order and reached first for the sheet of newspaper, on which the gooseberry hulls lay. "No, Wilke, don't bother with that. It is our affair to dispose of the hulls--Hertha, you must now wrap up the bundle and put a stone in it, so that it will sink better. Then we will march out in a long funeral procession and bury the bundle at sea." Wilke smiled with satisfaction. "Oh, Miss Effi, she's a trump," was about what he was thinking. But Effi laid the paper bundle in the centre of the quickly gathered up tablecloth and said: "Now let all four of us take hold, each by a corner, and sing something sorrowful." "Yes, Effi, that is easy enough to say, but what, pray, shall we sing?" "Just anything. It is quite immaterial, only it must have a rime in 'oo;' 'oo' is always a sad vowel. Let us sing, say: 'Flood, flood, Make it all good.'" While Effi was solemnly intoning this litany, all four marched out upon the landing pier, stepped into the boat tied there, and from the further end of it slowly lowered into the pond the pebble-weighted paper bundle. "Hertha, now your guilt is sunk out of sight," said Effi, "in which connection it occurs to me, by the way, that in former times poor unfortunate women are said to have been thrown overboard thus from a boat, of course for unfaithfulness." "But not here, certainly." "No, not here," laughed Effi, "such things do not take place here. But they do in Constantinople and it just occurs to me that you must know about it, for you were present in the geography class when the teacher told about it."