She accomplished her shopping at Hoffmann's, which was in a tumultuous bustle. She bought aprons with flowery patterns, and all the woollen mittens had coloured borders, and she defrayed the extra cost out of her own purse. While she was seeing her parcels packed into the sleigh at the door of the Prussian Crown she became aware that Leo was sitting at a little table in the window of the coffee-room. There was a bottle of wine before him, and his head was buried dejectedly in his hands. Her heart beat faster. She would have liked to ask if there was anything she could do for him on the way home, but she hadn't the courage to approach him. The drive back was again like a dream. She could not forget how he had smiled, and how kindly and simply he had greeted her. It is Christmas, she thought, that drives all enmity out of people's hearts. And now she knew what she would do to please him. The pocket-book should lie on his plate as a token of reconciliation, and instead of _the_ woman's likeness, grandmamma's dear honest face should smile out at him from the frame. That would alter the character of the present altogether. Hertha arrived home at half-past two. She was tired, but happy, and still held the pocket-book in her half-frozen fingers. There was not much for her to do. Grandmamma and the old Mamselle were arranging the presents, and the salon doors were locked. Elly, who had been fearfully lazy, and had scarcely finished in time her two yards of tatting for grandmamma, was stretched out on the sofa and began forthwith to talk nonsense. If Bruno only knew what Frank had whispered in her ear, it must come to a duel between them, and if Frank knew what Bruno had said to Kattie about her, a duel would also be the inevitable consequence. First she said she would cry herself sick over Bruno's death, and five minutes later, over Frank's. So her chatter went on aimlessly, interlarded with all sorts of expressions which filled Hertha with contemptuous disgust. During the autumn Elly had acquired a whole dictionary of English slang, and talked of "hot flirtations," "jolly fellows," and of things being "smart" and "swagger," till Hertha was almost mad from irritation. The latter stood at the window, from which one could see into the courtyard. She watched the drifting snow, flying clouds of which waltzed above the stables, and whipped from the slates of the roof, the white masses clung to the fanes like linen flags. The wind howled and sighed in the trees, and on the side that faced the wind their trunks were encrusted with great icicles. Here and there on the lawn patches of the turf were visible, and within them the withered trembling blades of grass looked like corpses brought out of their grave by magic and made to dance a weird measure. A pale light escaping from the clouds illumined the dusk uncannily. The smallest strip of sulphurous yellow showed the place where the sun had gone down.