And things had filled up at home. Rosa and the cook had been used so long to managing alone, and were so completely obsessed by the idea that the Frau Pastor was half dead and that her one real function was to lie down, that they regarded her suddenly frequent appearances in the kitchen with the uneasiness and discomfort with which they would have regarded the appearances of a ghost. No more than if she had been a ghost did they know what to do with her. She did not seem real, separated from her bedroom and her beef-tea. They could not work with her. She would make them jump when, on looking up, they saw her in their midst, having come in unheard with her strange lightness of movement. Their nerves were shaken when they discovered her on her knees in odd corners of the house doing things with dusters. To see her prodding potatoes over the fire, and weighing meat, and approaching onions familiarly made them creep. It was like some dreadful miracle. It was like, said Rosa, whispering, being obliged to cook dinners and make beds with the help of--side by side with-- "With what then?" cried the cook, pretending courage but catching fear from Rosa's face. "_Mit einem Lazarus_," whispered Rosa, behind her hand. The cook shrieked. They did not, however, give notice, being good girls and prepared to bear much, till they saw their names in red ink in one of the squares ruled on a sheet of paper the Frau Pastor pinned up on the sitting-room wall above her writing-table. For a day or two they were filled with nameless horror because the ink was red. Then, when they discovered what the numbers against the square, 3--4, meant, the horror was swept away in indignation, for it was the hour in the afternoon in which they usually mended or knitted and gossiped together, and it appeared that the Frau Pastor intended to come and sit with them during this hour and read aloud. "Nice books are so--so nice," said Ingeborg, explaining her idea. "Don't you think you'll like nice books?" She faltered a little, because of the expression on their faces. "There is the pig," said the cook desperately. "The pig?" "It has to be fed between three and four." "Oh, but we're not going to mind things like _pigs_!" said Ingeborg with a slightly laboured brightness. The next day they gave notice. But the plan pinned up in the parlour had nothing, except during this one hour, to do with Rosa and the cook; it had been drawn up solely on behalf of Robertlet and Ditti.