"I have brought you what you will require, my dear child," she said, "so that you may dress properly for the morning. In the country it is not customary to fly about the house in a morning wrapper. Meanwhile, after breakfast, we are to make a little tour of the estate, so that you can become acquainted with the people and see how the household works." "Shall I do the housekeeping?" asked Lilly, shyly. "If you understand how," said Fraeulein Schwertfeger, and bit her lips while her half-closed eyes squinted askance. Lilly dimly apprehended that her harmless question had been taken as a suggestion of infringing rights. So to make amends for her want of tact the added haltingly, "At least, I should like to do it if I----" She was going to add, "am allowed," but Fraeulein Schwertfeger interrupted. "My dear," she said, drawing herself up, "you have come here as mistress, and I am perfectly aware of the fact. But, if I may venture to advise, I should make no demands in your place to begin with; you will have enough to do in attending to your own behaviour. On this will depend your ever becoming in reality what you are now in name only." Lilly felt too snubbed and depressed to answer. The duenna was showing her hand already. "I should advise you further," she went on, "to feel very carefully the ground on which you will afterwards have to move. For this you will need a guide who is more familiar with it than yourself. Otherwise you may be landed in difficulties from which you can never be rescued, and that, considering your relations to the colonel, would be a great pity." Tears began to rise in Lilly's eyes. The old feeling of impotence, which she considered her greatest fault, overcame her. "Oh, please, don't _you_ be my enemy," she implored, clasping her hands. There was a sudden ray of light in Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's eyes, which lay usually like extinct volcanoes beneath their heavy lids, and whether it meant inquiry, astonishment, or compassion was not quite clear. For a moment she continued to stare before her into space, and Lilly beheld a grand noble profile that looked as if it had been chiselled out of marble and seemed to belong to someone quite different. Then she found herself being encircled by two long thin arms, and held in an embrace warmer and sincerer than any of the endearments Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had previously lavished on her. "My dear child!" she exclaimed, "you really are a dear child," and she departed. Half an hour later Lilly, attired in the clothes Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had chosen for her, entered the dining-room, where old Ferdinand, a withered, spindle-legged specimen of the ancient retainer, was laying the breakfast. The impudent footman with the significant smile was not there, Lilly was thankful to see.