When her brother, accompanied by one or the other of those quickly succeeding wives, went off on his annual walking tour through the Semmering, as many as could be got into the little house were deposited there for safe-keeping. The family Christmas and New Year's dinners took place at Tante Ilde's, and on the 18th of August, the Emperor's birthday, they were all to be found again sitting about that well-laden table. She was the first to know their joys and griefs, and "I'm going to tell Tante Ilde about it," was a familiar expression in the family. A pleasant lady to look at, too, with a bit of lace flung over her shining white hair, a bit of it always about her neck. Her skin had a lustrous smoothness, the many tiny wrinkles no more disfiguring than the fine crackings in old ivory. Her nose was delicately arched and her lips kept long their agreeable red. But it was her eyes, more than all of these, that caught the attention. They were very large and were set quite flatly, shallowly in her face, pale blue lakes of indefectible innocence, and while time had wrought some changes in the areas surrounding them,--a wrinkle, a dent, a falling in or away,--their placidity had gently endured. They opened widely and though sometimes they had been obliged to gaze upon one or the other wicked spectacle of a wicked world, no shadow of its evil remained upon them. That wide, blue, child-like gaze from that aging face was what was first noticed about her and last forgot. The startled expression that appeared upon her countenance at the beginning of her misfortunes, towards the end was changed into one of almost formidable submission. She had always been slender and graceful with a way of holding herself that verged on elegance and her clothes were put on with a pleasant precision. She had worn a long gold chain around her neck since any of them could remember, holding a little gold watch tucked in at her neat belt; she always wore, too, a pair of round gold bracelets that successive baby nephews and nieces had grasped at, leaving fine marks of little teeth upon them. Tante Ilde loved those tiny dents. There was often a gentle tinkle as she played with her chain with the hand bearing her wedding ring and a quite inconspicuous one of amethyst and pearls. Just as inconspicuous was Frau Stacher's being, her situation and her works, as that pale stone, those little, lustreless pearls. None save a doubly-blindfolded Fate, striking recklessly about at millions would have found so unimportant a mark.