Frau Asmussen was a dignified-looking and portly person, who received Lilly at the entrance of the library, and amidst kisses and tears assured her that she had loved her as her own daughter before she saw her, and now that they had met she was perfectly enchanted with her. "Who can ever say that strangers are cold and distant again?" thought Lilly, delighted with her reception. "Did I say my own daughter? I should have said, ten times more than my own daughters. One's own daughters are vipers who turn and sting; one must pluck them from one's bosom----" She had to pause, because the lethargic clerk who had come with Lilly in the cab was bringing in her box. When he had gone, Frau Asmussen continued: "Do you suppose I loved my daughters, or that I did not love them? Haven't I said to them every day: 'Your father was a blackguard, a cur, and may God forgive him!' And what do you think they did? Went off one fine morning--went off on their own hook--leaving a note on the table: 'We're going to father. You bully us more than we can put up with, and we are sick of everlasting milk puddings.' You see what I am, my dear--I am kindness itself. Do I look as if I could hurt a fly, much less my own daughters? And they did it not once, but three times; this is the third time they have exposed me to the scoffs and jeers of the town--the third time they have disgraced me. Twice they came back in rags and misery, and I have taken them to my heart and forgiven them. But just let them try it on again--let them come back a third time! There's a broomstick behind the door ready for them. Directly they show their noses inside, out they shall go into the street. I'll beat them, and then sweep them out at the door like so much waste-paper." And with an air of unspeakable disgust Frau Asmussen swept an invisible something through the hall and gave it a kick over the step. "Poor, poor woman!" thought Lilly. "How much she must have suffered!" and she vowed inwardly to do her best to make up to the mother for the loss of such unworthy daughters. At this point a young man came in to change a book. He asked for a volume of Zola, and looked at Lilly as much as to say, "You see what a dog I am." Frau Asmussen shook her head reproachfully, and fetched down the book required from an upper shelf. He clutched it eagerly, without heeding in the least the glance of warning with which the old lady handed it to him. "You see, my dear," she said when he had gone, "that's how the young go to perdition, and I am condemned to help them on the way." "Why?" asked Lilly. "Do you know how a chemist's shop is arranged?" Lilly said she had often been in one, but couldn't remember.