Hertha had become very thoughtful. "Ah! the olden times," she said, with a faint smile. "It's no good talking of them. They tilted at tournaments then, and killed each other with their lances for fun!" "And to-day," said Elly in a whisper, raising herself in bed with the wide eyes of a child reading a fairy tale, "to-day they shoot each other dead with pistols for a joke instead." Hertha felt a stab at her hearty and the little rosy daughter of Eve went on. "I should think it lovely to have such an unhappy affair when married.... For, you know, most of the romantic love stories are of this kind." "Who told you so?" "Don't you remember what Käthi Graffenstein said about her aunt?" "Pah!" cried Hertha. "Whatever _she_ said about it would sure to be a lie." The conversation ceased at this point, for, after Elly letting fall the much-hated name, Hertha refused to talk any more. But long after the light had been put out she lay awake pondering, and tried by various experimental thoughts to penetrate the veil which hung between her childlike outlook and life. The next afternoon she approached, with faltering step, kind grandmamma, whose wooden knitting-needles were busily employed on one of her favourite Shetland wool shawls. "Have you an uneasy conscience?" asked grandmamma, who thought she knew what she wanted. "God forbid! I only wish to know, am I properly grown up, or am I not?" "Well ... half and half," suggested grandmamma, giving her a smiling scrutiny over her spectacles. Hertha drew a deep breath. She had entered on a daring enterprise, she knew, but, at all costs, she must clear up this matter. "I mean that I shall probably soon be married, and I----" "You!" exclaimed grandmamma, in deadly terror. The unhappy child had evidently come to break to her the proposal of some saucy youth in the neighbourhood. "Of course ...," continued Hertha, mouthing her words, ... "of course ... with all my money I am not likely to be an old maid." Grandmamma caught hold of her hands. "Child, whom have you got in your mind?" she cried, beginning to perspire with anxiety. Hertha blushed to the roots of her hair. "I? ... nobody," she stuttered, struggling to maintain a nonchalant tone. "You are talking indefinitely?" "Yes ... of course ... indefinitely." Grandmamma ventured to breathe more freely again, and determined forthwith that she would talk seriously to Leo that very day, and warn him that the "gold fish" might be snapped up, by some one else under his very eyes, if he did not look out. "And ... now let me hear what you want to know." "I want to know ... about love ... after marriage." Grandmamma, who was used to these sort of questions, though lately they had been less frequent than of old, replied lightly, "It's the same after as before." "Yes ... I know. But if there's another ... to whom one is not married ..." "Gracious! _what_?" Grandmamma let her glasses fall off her nose in sheer horrified amazement. "What other?"