"Would you like to talk a little with me, Nanette? That's kindly of you now. I thought you never meant to take notice of me; you've hardly said one word to me in the three days since you came, and when I was so glad that we were going to have the same mistress." "What else could I do? Haven't I to sit in that little den all day long just listening for Fräulein Schommer's bell? A pretty fuss she would make if I chanced not to hear it!" "Come now Nanette, she is not so bad as you think,--a little strict perhaps,--but mind your orders and you never hear a hard word from her." "She's a fiend! a Zantuppy!" Nanette rejoined, pettishly. "A Zantuppy?" Wilhelm asked, astonished. "What is a Zantuppy?" Nanette regarded the ignorant fellow with condescending compassion. "You have had no education, Wilhelm!" she said. "Every one who knows anything calls every scolding woman a Zantuppy. I'd Zantuppy her if I could with her proud and haughty airs treating us as if we were the dirt under her feet!" Here she suddenly recollected how her anger disfigured her, and compelling her features to a smile that contrasted strangely with her words, she went on: "And to-day she's bristling like a porkypine; first she scolded me for saying 'my lady' to her, and then for not saying it to the stupid companion." "But that's nothing, Nanette; she doesn't like to be called my lady; and if she wants us to bow and scrape to the lady Aline von Schlicht, 'tis easy done,--and the place is a good one. I've lived in the first families; but such meals, and such perquisites! Rely upon it, Nanette, you'll like it and thank me yet for helping to get you here. If Fräulein Schommer gets out of bed the wrong side now and then never mind it,--she's the right stuff at heart. She is a little out of sorts to-day. I saw that when she so suddenly gave orders to drive home, although she had not been to a single shop." "She is in a bad humour then? I knew it; she flew at me as if she would eat me. What went amiss? Did anything vex her on the drive?" "Not that I know of. We had scarcely driven through the promenade when she suddenly called out, 'Home!'" "Something's wrong. Perhaps she's in love. Did you meet any one who did not seem pleased enough to see her?" "What queer ideas you have, Nanette! She never thinks of such things,--never looks at a man. With all her millions she's twenty-two and unmarried. She might furnish a worsted-shop with all the mittens she's given the men, if she could collect them." "Of course any one as rich as she can give as many mittens as she chooses; there are always men enough to hanker after money, but there are some who don't care for it." "And that's true enough, Nanette," Wilhelm replied, with a grin. "Now here am I, who never think of money when I see such a pretty face as yours."