* * * * * The winter passed in rain and fog; mild March evenings came when rosy cloudlets floated over the housetops, and then spring was really there. The trim little trees in the squares put forth their brown buds, which by degrees burst into pale green leaves. Lilly saw as little of the riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded being alone in a crowd. Warm, oppressive Sunday afternoons followed, when endless troops of townsfolk make pilgrimages to the suburbs and country round, when the streets stretch away in empty desolation, and the sultry skies seem to weigh down suffocatingly on the unfortunate people left at home, panting within four walls. On such afternoons Frau Laue put on a pair of real Rhinestone earrings, a brown velveteen dress with a collar of black sequins on the square-cut neck, and in this festive attire paid Lilly a formal visit in the best room. Then the Dresden evening gowns came out of the wardrobe, and entered into competition with those worn twenty-five years ago by frail ladies in the stage box of the variety theatre. The faded photographs of long-extinguished stars would be brought down from the wall and their charms examined. Apropos of these, thrilling stories would be related of personal adventures, in which, amid much laxity of morals and gay peccadilloes, matrimonial fidelity had maintained its modest value. The summer Sunday afternoon would wear away, wan and exhausted as a fever patient, a stifling breeze blow in at the window. The varnish on the cheap rosewood furniture would reek, the houses opposite shine as if they were perspiring, and Frau Laue, munching her bread and cheese, would once more repeat the oft-told tale of her virtuous married life. When at last she took her departure, Lilly would sink groaning on her bed, hide her face in the stuffy pillows, and listen to the shouts of the merry-makers in the street below returning from their trips. The next morning the pressing and pasting of flowers would begin again with renewed vigour. July came, and she could stand it no longer. One Monday morning, when daylight found her awake and waiting, her pillow soaked with tears, a sudden longing for life so warm and irresistible filled her heart that she bounded out of bed with an exultant cry.